2006 Legislative Session: Second Session, 38th Parliament
SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON HEALTH
MINUTES AND HANSARD

MINUTES SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON HEALTH Tuesday, October 17, 2006 8:30 a.m. Cafeteria, Sir Charles Tupper Secondary 419 East 24th Avenue, Vancouver

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON 
HEALTH

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2006

ISSN 1499-4232

[ Page 197 ]

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2006

          The committee met at 8:43 a.m.

           [R. Sultan in the chair.]

           R. Sultan (Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is Ralph Sultan. I'm the MLA for West Vancouver–Capilano and the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Health. We are so delighted that Sir Charles Tupper School would have us as guests this morning to solicit views on a very important topic that the Legislature has assigned to us — namely, how do we address the issue of childhood obesity in British Columbia?

           I'd particularly like to thank the principal, Iona Whishaw, who has explained to me the special characteristics of Sir Charles Tupper School, known throughout the school system for its friendliness, its caring attitudes and its multiculturalism. We have here the very best of the public school system of British Columbia, and all of the committee members are delighted that you would have us come in here.

[0845]

           It's vitally important that we hear from youth on this issue. Indeed, our Clerk of Committees has explained that this is a first in the history of legislative committees in B.C. We have never before gone out to consult with youth. So we're breaking new ground this morning by coming in to Sir Charles Tupper with our full array of Hansard recording every word that is said, which will be put on the Internet and will be recorded in print form in Hansard. So 30 or 40 years from now, if you are testifying and give your name, you can go to parliament and look it up in a book and see what you said back in 2006.

           To provide some perspective on the issue, it's estimated that more than a quarter of British Columbia's youth between the ages of two and 17 are either overweight or clearly obese. Recently the provincial health officer stated that in each case, the combination of obesity, physical inactivity and smoking adds a huge amount of money every year to how much it costs to run the provincial health system.

           To date, our consultations have been hearing from the experts — from the dietitians, the doctors, the clinicians, the food industry professionals. But it is really very important that we hear the young people who are most directly concerned with this issue. In order to do that, we have created the website myhealthyspace.ca, which has a questionnaire. It has a blog that I would urge all of you to log onto and give us your comments, which then everybody in the world can read at myhealthyspace.ca. It has a cute little video that might amuse you.

           We are also welcoming written submissions on the topic from everyone, including the youth.

           As you're well aware, I'm sure, and as we are reminded by venturing forth into the school system, the Legislature and politicians are not particularly youth-friendly. So we're trying to change that, and with our website and with our venture into the schools in British Columbia, we hope to be able to open up this dialogue and hear from the young people most directly affected.

           We are going to hear from many of you this morning. I have a list of names of people who are going to present to us as, we would say, witnesses. When you come to present, beginning with our two guests from General Brock School, who will lead off in a moment, if you could state your name very clearly for the record so that we get it spelled correctly…. If necessary, come to some of the staff members and make sure they've got your name correctly transcribed.

           Now I'd like to introduce the members of the Health Committee. I would go around the table and just ask them to introduce themselves.

           K. Conroy: I'm Katrine Conroy. I'm the MLA for West Kootenay–Boundary. That's in the Kootenays, and I live in Castlegar.

           M. Sather: I'm Michael Sather, the MLA for Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows, which, as some of you may know, is in the Fraser Valley. You may have been to Golden Ears Park. That's in my area.

           C. Wyse: I'm Charlie Wyse. I'm from Cariboo South. I live in Williams Lake. I'm so pleased that you are having me here today. I'm looking forward to all the information you're going to share with me. Thank you for your time.

           K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk Assistant and Committee Clerk): My name is Kate Ryan-Lloyd. I serve as the Clerk to this committee.

           D. Hayer: Good morning. My name is Dave Hayer. I'm the MLA for Surrey-Tynehead.

           V. Roddick: Good morning. My name is Valerie Roddick. I'm the MLA for what they call Delta South, which is the Ladner-Tsawwassen area, where the B.C. Ferries go across to Vancouver Island. Thank you so much for having us here. This is really terrific.

           J. Nuraney: I'm John Nuraney. I'm from Burnaby, the house of Metrotown.

           R. Sultan (Chair): I would also like to introduce Jonathan Fershau, who's our research analyst, and Carla Shore, who is working on media liaison with us. Also with us today are the staff of Hansard Services, Mike Leblond and Andrew Costa, who will assist us by recording every word. Hansard prepares a written transcript, which will be available on the Internet probably in less than 24 hours. They are very, very good.

[0850]

           We would like to begin by hearing from our first two witnesses. We have with us today Isabelle Tupas and Jahahan Pathamanathan. They're from General Brock Elementary School. Isabelle, perhaps you would like to begin.

[ Page 198 ]

Presentations

           I. Tupas: In our class we talked about eating healthier. These are some things we talked about: increase the price of junk food — tax it; improve the products in vending machines; stop selling junk food in schools; offer more fruit in schools; and teach parents about junk food.

           Then we talked about being more active — make it more safe to play outside, longer recesses, and sports are too expensive. That's it.

           R. Sultan (Chair): Thank you, Isabelle. Some of our committee may have questions to ask you in a moment, but could we ask Jahahan to give his presentation.

           J. Pathamanathan: I'd like to start by thanking everyone for giving me this opportunity to talk to you today. I'm here to speak to you about proper eating habits. There are a lot of kids who are overweight and not healthy. I will be telling you what you, the B.C. government, can do about unhealthy kids.

           First of all, I think you should get the teachers and parents more involved in our food choices. You could fund more programs that educate kids on healthy lifestyles, like reading, fun and active programs that will keep kids interested in staying fit.

           Make new healthy snacks that taste good. Instead of selling chips and pop in vending machines, sell healthy products like milk.

           Since we are full of different cultures in B.C., you should also encourage multicultural foods in school cafeterias so kids can have a variety of healthy choices.

           The government should encourage the principles of eating right. The parents and the teachers are supposed to be role models, so if you get the parents and teachers helping, the kids might follow.

           Thank you for listening to my speech about healthy eating habits.

           R. Sultan (Chair): Thank you. Perhaps members of the committee have questions of these experts.

           C. Wyse: Once more, thank you for all the time you've put in to prepare for this. A question for you, Isabelle. You talked about exercise being increased. Do you think the increase should be both in the schools and outside the schools?

           I. Tupas: Yes.

           C. Wyse: How would you suggest we might go about encouraging that increase of activity?

           I. Tupas: Well, we could make more sports programs like soccer and maybe a little bit of hockey, basketball and stuff like that.

           J. Nuraney: Isabelle, you said to make the playgrounds safer. What do you mean by that? What is it at the playgrounds that you find not very safe?

           I. Tupas: Some kids run…. You know those wood chips that they put in the playgrounds? Sometimes people fall, and then they get kind of hurt because some of the wood is pointy. Stuff like that.

           J. Nuraney: Jahahan, do you have any comment to make on that? Do you find the playgrounds not very safe?

           J. Pathamanathan: Some places are not very safe. There are a lot of people, like thieves and people that sell drugs.

           R. Sultan (Chair): We could go on, I'm sure, for another 20 minutes questioning these expert witnesses, but we have a long list of people here from Sir Charles Tupper as well. Maybe we should move along and thank Isabelle and Jahahan for their testimony this morning.

[0855]

           The next group of witnesses. Perhaps I will just read out the names on the list. I don't know if all the students are here and whether you're coming up individually or as a group, but let me just rattle off the names. I understand that Lauren Crossfield and Justin Cleveland are planning to present together. Perhaps they could take the table, if they're here.

           While we're setting up, I just might mention the other witnesses we hope to have: Joyce Lam, David Wu, Amir Khaledi, Rebecca Wu, Nikkita Wong, Vanessa Lo, Mahro Anfield, Amy Learmonth, John Van, Anne Neyra, Chaufa Nguyen, Fresnona Wu and David Decolongon. If those people would be ready, we will start with Lauren.

           L. Crossfield: I think one of the main reasons people don't seem to be eating well recently has a lot to do with the financial issue. In my family we have only one income because my mother is disabled, which makes healthy eating a lot more difficult because they charge a lot more for the healthy foods than for the junk food.

           When people don't eat a balanced diet, they don't participate in physical activity as often. The foods they're eating don't have proper nutrients in them to create energy, and many of these foods make you feel sluggish. Many more people these days are obese because they can't afford healthy food, when you can get twice the amount of junk food. If you have a financial issue, you're not worrying about calories. You're worrying about how much you're getting for your dollar. Let's face it. If you can get an entire meal at McDonald's for the price of a sandwich at a grocery store, the choice is pretty simple for people who don't have a lot, whether it's healthy or not.

           When I went to elementary school, we had a program called Action Schools B.C. that we took part in. It elaborated a lot on our physical activity, because they set aside particular times each day to participate in activity — whether it was skipping, running or playing tag. We noticed over a period of a month that a lot of the people's health and agility went up and increased

[ Page 199 ]

quite a bit from beforehand. If you put that into high schools more than just elementary schools, it would probably help a lot with everything. I don't know if they have it in Vancouver, but they had a lot of schools in Richmond taking part in that program.

           With the issue on food, I think people should be charging less for the healthier foods and more for the unhealthy foods, because if you can't afford healthy foods, you're not going to be eating them. A lot of people have money issues these days.

           R. Sultan (Chair): We have 16 more witnesses, so I'm going to ask the committee if they would hold their questions until the end. Take note of the persons to whom you wish to address questions, and we will go through all the speakers from Sir Charles Tupper and then have a question period. Is that all right?

           Thank you, Lauren.

           I might also mention that two other names have been added to the list, Yvonne Pinazo and Adam Ziada, so we hope to hear from them as well. Is Justin Cleveland presenting this morning?

           We have a group here. Perhaps you can give your names and your grade. Maybe we can pull up some more chairs. Is that possible? We have a group presentation by five students. If you could begin with your names and grades, please.

           J. Lam: My name is Joyce Lam, and I am a grade 12 student at Tupper.

           A. Khaledi: My name is Amir Khaledi. I'm a grade 12 student at Tupper.

           D. Wu: My name is David Wu, and I'm a grade 12 student at Tupper.

           J. Cleveland: My name is Justin Cleveland, and I'm a grade 12 student at Tupper.

           J. Van: My name is John Van, and I'm a grade 12 student at Tupper.

[0900]

           J. Lam: We have brainstormed five categories in which students will have the opportunity to gain physical activities. Our areas are extracurricular activities, intramurals, physical education on elementary school and secondary levels, community sports and family recreational activity. All of these areas involve a lot of associated costs.

           First, I'll speak about family recreational activities. We want to re-educate parents as to the value of physical fitness and encourage them to be more physically active with their children. We'd like to see the creation of more parks and more recreational green spaces.

           D. Wu: I will be talking about physical fitness at an early age. It is especially crucial for students in elementary school to have an early start in physical fitness. What we don't see is funding in elementary schools for specialists. We have teachers who teach them English, sciences and math, but they don't really specialize in physical fitness. So it is really crucial at an early age to start physical fitness.

           A. Khaledi: Hi. My name is Amir. I'm on the wrestling team, senior rugby team, senior soccer team and elite soccer team outside of school. I'm in PE 12 and in PE leadership. I'm here to talk about the travelling costs for high school athletes such as myself.

           Last year alone I had troubles paying for my travelling fees. My fees came up to about $1,000. My conclusion is that I would like to see a provincial travel grant reinstated.

           J. Van: Hi. I do PE 12, and it's costing me a lot. It's costing me $100 alone because we go on field trips and stuff. It's like life experience — canoeing, rock climbing and all that. It's good at this age to learn all those things just in case you want to do it later on. It's good, but then we want to make it more affordable for everyone rather than…. It's really costly right now, and not everyone is attracted to it. I like the 80-hours idea. You should make it mandatory for all grade 11s and 12s to take PE. Otherwise, they won't maintain the physical attributes that they had before.

           Basically, I just want you to make all the classes subsidized, all the physical activities. I'm in senior volleyball as well, and that's costing me $25. For rugby this year I also have to pay $85, so my total is $210 so far.

           J. Cleveland: Hello. My name is Justin. I've been a participant in community sports from a very young age. This year alone it's been $200 for me to participate in soccer. I would like to see a tax rebate for families who put their children in soccer and other sports in the community.

           R. Sultan (Chair): Just for background, you all seem to have a physical education orientation. You have come as a special group focusing on that topic, I presume, because you are specialists in this area of the school, as it were.

           A Voice: Yes.

           R. Sultan (Chair): Well, I'm sure our committee members will have many questions for you, but as I said, we have others on the list. I think we'll move right along and then come back with specific questions. So remember the names of the people you wish to ask questions of, committee members.

           We have Vanessa Lo and Rebecca Wu. Could you just introduce yourselves and your grade.

           V. Lo: I'm Vanessa, and I'm in grade 10.

           R. Wu: I'm Rebecca, and I'm also in grade 10.

           V. Lo: I just think that we should lower the prices of sporting camps for families who haven't much money.

[ Page 200 ]

           R. Wu: Many children really want to play sports, and when you put a price on it, you make it really hard for them to participate.

           We should raise the prices of junk food and lower the prices of healthy food, because usually junk food is the cheapest food you can find. So it's common for everybody to go buy junk food. If healthy food prices were lower, I'm pretty sure a lot of people would buy healthy food too.

[0905]

           R. Sultan (Chair): We'll come back and explore these subjects a little further, but let's hear from the rest of them. Then we'll come back to you and ask questions.

           M. Anfield: Hi. I'm Mahro Anfield.

           Y. Pinazo: I'm Yvonne Pinazo from grade 10.

           A. Learmonth: I'm Amy Learmonth from grade 11.

           M. Anfield: We just want to talk about eating habits and lack of exercise within our schools and community. Our generation's unhealthy lifestyle has become a considerable issue that needs to be addressed, and we look to the government for support in changing our ways.

           Tracing back our concern, we have discovered that it is within our very school that these unhealthy habits are being developed and made worse. From the tempting vending machines to the lack of exercise, we realize that this negative picture of our school and the students in it must be altered. However, these goals of ours cannot be met if we do not have full support from our school and community.

           Looking at the reasons behind our food choices, we must consider the fact that…. The immense number of vending machines that offer both convenience and affordability can often be far more appealing than the cafeteria.

           Also with their availability throughout the day, it isn't a mystery why so many students choose to eat from the machines when hungry. However, we must not look at this as a black and white issue, for the cafeteria has its faults as well. The healthier choices from the soups and sandwiches…. The desserts are much more available and are at a far more reasonable price.

           Another option is the choice of bringing food from home. However, this idea suffers from the shortage of fridges and microwaves, making options quite limited.

           Through these many concerns it has become more and more apparent that the school itself is our major influence when it comes to eating habits, and constructive changes must be made.

           Y. Pinazo: Exercising, like food, cannot be achieved to the best of its ability without the cooperation of students in the school. Although the physical education and dance courses are made available to all grades, they're often abandoned to make room for required courses, including provincial exam courses.

           Also, this problem seems to stem out of past school hours and continues to be an issue recreationally. From homework to socializing to part-time jobs, at the end of the day sometimes there just isn't the time to exercise, and more options need to be made available.

           Turning back to the issue of food, we suggest that the chips, candy and pop in vending machines be replaced with healthier choices. Milk to go, granola bars, juice boxes, fruit leather and many other options are all better for the mind and body, and they are the choices that our school must support in order for us to maintain an improved lifestyle.

           Moving on to the cafeteria, we suggest that the overwhelming size of desserts, which hold enough calories for an entire meal, be reduced to make room for foods that hold more nutrition. We would also like to see additional salads and vegetarian options, as well as more sandwiches. These foods cannot just be present; they must be made obtainable at a low price so that all can purchase them.

           These ideas are just a brainstorm, but if they were to be put into effect, we are optimistic that the ideas will be….

           A. Learmonth: When we are looking at the solutions to the lack of exercise and activity, we must put some of our focus on the school and the courses you offer. Although both physical education and the dance courses are great starts, we recommend that similar courses be offered, which would, in the end, appeal to a broader range of individuals. Swimming, figure skating and biking are all probable if we access our resources, and the already existing golf club and ski club are excellent examples.

           Also, the community centres must take more initiative in encouraging youth involvement within their facilities. By subsidizing their costs to use, we feel that a healthier lifestyle will be promoted and made easier to achieve.

           From our influences in eating to fitting exercising into our complex schedules, these issues seem to always come back to the school in some way or another. However, we must not forget that this is a complex issue which involves home life as well. You can set goals to have a healthy lifestyle all you want, but you need the support from your family to achieve it. Whether in food or fitness or the encouragement to do so, we must have the determination to change our habits before they change us. We must make sure that our goals are supported by both our school community and our family life.

[0910]

           R. Sultan (Chair): Thank you. I forgot to ask what grades you witnesses are in.

           A Voice: Grade 12.

           R. Sultan (Chair): All in grade 12?

           A Voice: We're both in grade 11.

[ Page 201 ]

           R. Sultan (Chair): And do I sense, perhaps, from your remarks that you have a particular interest in home economics? Is that your particular focus in terms of studies?

           Y. Pinazo: We're actually taking a family management class.

           R. Sultan (Chair): I see. Okay. Well, I'm sure that our committee members will have many questions to ask — you, in particular — but we would like to, at this stage, thank you and move along to our next set of witnesses.

           A. Neyra: Hi. My name is Anne Jhuzett Neyra. I'm a grade 9 student at Sir Charles Tupper. As teens, we like to be active, but if a price comes with that specific activity — a very high price, I might add — we won't be so interested anymore.

           If there were more sports programs in our neighbourhoods and they had a low price to them or were even free, teens are able to have fun. They can stay active, and they can keep most of their money while they're at it. I'm pretty sure that's something that parents will give thumbs up to, too. Because parents can just tell their kids to go run outside for free, and they don't have to pay anything — right?

           We don't even need to do that huge thing yet. We can just go back to the idea of making physical education mandatory for grades 11 and 12. Also, maybe drop those school fees so kids don't have to pay as much either.

           Maybe we could have different kind of curricula, chosen by the kids. So if I don't like soccer and I had to do a unit on soccer, I'm just standing there kicking the ball around. I don't think that would be very active. If they're chosen by the kids, they can enjoy it. They can keep their body fit while they're at it as they grow up.

           C. Nguyen: Hi. My name is Chaufa Nguyen, and I'm a grade 10 student at Tupper. I just want to begin with a question, and that is: what if a person's obesity is due to hereditary reasons? We can't assume that all people who are obese are eating too much. There can just be a gene that's passed on through a family member.

           I believe that scientists should do research to find out how to prevent the obesity gene from being passed on or created. Results should also be shared with students not just in high school but as young as grade 2 to increase awareness in an earlier stage of their life.

           This brings me to my next point. At a younger age our minds are just more absorbent. We're still in the learning stage, and our minds aren't as filled as, say, a grade 11 or 12 student. I think we should take advantage of that situation and fill their minds with information and the warning signs about obesity. We do workshops about smoking, drugs and sex education, which all affect our health, so why don't we have workshops on obesity?

           It is also under the big topic of health. It makes more of an impact, and more people die from heart attacks than smoking in one year. The life expectancy of our generation is shorter than those of previous years, so we should try to get kids to lead a healthier lifestyle. It will help them in the long run.

           The government can easily help by increasing awareness at a younger age, and I think we should make dramatic changes soon. Parents would be burying their kids — and it should be the other way around — if we don't make the changes soon.

           R. Sultan (Chair): Thank you, Chaufa.

           F. Wu: Hi. I'm Fresnona, and I'm in grade 8 this year. As a student myself, I have noticed that many of my peers do listen strongly to many opinions and alerts. One kind of warning that has been quite effective was the smoking advertisements that showed the consequences of smoking. I thought that just like those smoking labels, we could also put outcome stickers on the junk food packages.

[0915]

           I personally had not thought that these campaigns had been pretty effective because these really didn't look that appealing to us. But I've noticed that many students, like myself, have seen that these labels have really made changes, My concluding statement for this point is that teens who are on the stage do listen to campaigns like that. It does make a difference in our lifestyles.

           Thank you.

           D. Decolongon: Hello, I'm David Decolongon. I'm a grade 9 student.

           When it comes to school and all that, we are encouraged to actually have a healthy diet. We are encouraged to be active, but it's sort of like we're being encouraged to do it and at the same time, we're not really putting it into action. Most of the time it's about the food that we eat and all that. Most of the food that's actually considered healthy is way too expensive, and it's not that accessible. Most of the food that is junk food and is unhealthy for us is way too accessible, and it's way too cheap. So what I'm suggesting is that you guys should actually keep the junk food but raise the prices substantially and subsidize the prices of the healthy food, so that the actual students can make their own choices, but at the same time, have to sort of be hinted to go towards the healthy food.

           Thank you.

           A. Ziada: My name is Adam Ziada. I am in grade 10. Actually, I have a number of issues about healthy eating and junk food. I will maybe even get into a little more of a biological standpoint at the end of this whole speech.

           My first, like everyone else has already said, is high prices. For goodness' sake, if you walk into the cafeteria right behind you, yeah, you can find healthy food. You can find a cup of fruit this big for about $1.75. Now, would anybody pay $1.75 for that much fruit? I could go to Safeway or Superstore and for the same amount get two mangoes, a few apples — lots of things for

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$1.75, as opposed to a cup of fruit that big that isn't even ripe. It's very sparse. You get can get healthy food. Your choices are that cup of fruit, some yoghurt, some V8 and a sandwich or two that have, maybe, some meat in them and some lettuce. That's about it. That's just not right.

           Also, junk food is way more available. The ratio of junk food to healthy food would probably be about 1 to 7 that you can get. Well, actually, it's a bit down now, because one of our vending machines has broken down. But once that's fixed, it'll probably be going up again.

           Now, a little more biologically. Trans fats, which are in many of the chips, cookies and all the…. I'm not even sure if I want to call them food that they put in that machine. I see that trans fats are very dangerous, actually. What I've recently learned is that trans fats will actually trap the fat and draw the fat to your stomach, and stomach fat is actually one of the main causes of diabetes. That is one of the major causes of it.

           Many of those chips don't have any iron or very much protein in them. Let me explain this in a little less biological standpoint. How many people in the audience have cold fingers? That is a key sign of a problem with your hemoglobin, something which is in the red blood cells.

[0920]

           For pretty much everyone over grade 8, you know how important hemoglobin is, and hemoglobin needs iron. If people are sitting there not affording, say, healthier food like steak or chicken, they'll be eating those junk foods or chicken-flavoured chips or steak-flavoured chips — well, maybe not steak-flavoured chips, but you understand my point. That can actually lead to hemoglobin deficiency and red blood cell deficiency.

           That's also mainly why people have cold fingers. We have dance class, and we have had to square dance…. I'd say that I've got about 30 girls in my dance class, and last year when I square-danced with them, about two of them had warm fingers. That kind of shows that we may even be facing this hemoglobin deficiency.

           The other thing is that when you go into the cafeteria, you see a lot of good food, but I often question: what is in this food? How much fat and how many trans fats are in this food? How many calories, even, and how much protein or iron or good things are in this food?

           Now, I think that what would make it kind of interesting would be maybe to have not an exact proportion but an idea of how much fat and good things are in this cafeteria food. There are nutrition charts on the back of many, many different things we eat — from juice boxes to…. I think I even saw them in a store once. Once in a restaurant — I think I even saw them there.

           R. Sultan (Chair): Adam, maybe you can make one more point, and then we'll come back to you during question period.

           A. Ziada: My final point is that overcrowded schedules makes it quite difficult for people to put in things like PE. Like, I've even contemplated not putting PE into my grade 11 schedule to make way for the academics. That's my final point.

           R. Sultan (Chair): Thank you, Adam.

           Before we go to our questions from the legislators, I would like to acknowledge the presence in the audience of Mr. Tim Feng of the Parliamentary Centre in Ottawa. Mr. Feng is here today with two delegates visiting Canada from the National People's Congress in China. They're visiting Canada to observe our innovative committee consultation methods. We would like to make them welcome here today. Their names are Chenfeng Cai and Chunhua Li. Would you please make them welcome.

           Now we have an opportunity for the legislators to ask questions of certain individuals.

           J. Nuraney: I have three questions for three separate people who've made presentations, starting from the last one.

           Adam, I think your presentation was very enlightening, in the sense that you do have a lot of knowledge of what is junk food and what's in it. Would you say that if those packages were labelled or perhaps colour-coded to say what is good for you, not so very good for you and bad for you, like yellow, green and red colour coding on packages…? Do you think that's a good idea?

           A. Ziada: Yes. My name's Adam Ziada. For those of you who don't know, yes, that is an Egyptian name, surprisingly.

           My thought about that is yes, having kind of a ratio from the good to the bad would be quite interesting. I for one have gone into the cafeteria and seen things like pumpkin pie and thought: pumpkin, pastry, dough — how much fat could be in there? Then I think: they could probably have put a lot of butter, oils and even lard in there, for all I know. Even a colour-coding probably would help to ease me a bit.

[0925]

           J. Nuraney: Thank you. You must have held a lot of hands.

           My second question, if I may, is about the grade 11 student who said that they do a family management course. Can you tell me a little bit more as to what you do in that course?

           Y. Pinazo: Basically, we learn about how different people behave and their attitudes, beliefs. Right now we're focusing on nutrition values and how we can maintain healthy lifestyles by exercising.

           J. Nuraney: My final one, Mr. Chair, if I may. The sports group. I was quite surprised to see that it's costing you guys a lot of money to take part in sports. What about those who can't afford it? What happens to those students?

           A. Khaledi: About those who can't afford, I believe the government should reinstate — what was it? —

[ Page 203 ]

that they support the kids for money, paying for fees. I believe they should reinstate it. That's it, basically.

           J. Nuraney: They don't take part if they can't afford it?

           A. Khaledi: I still think they should be able to take part, but….

           Interjection.

           A. Khaledi: Yes, they still take part — just not as much, and they can't go at such a high level as people who can afford it.

           R. Sultan (Chair): I think we'll just go in order around the table, and our next legislator is Val Roddick from Delta.

           V. Roddick: I was wondering. There was — and I didn't write the name down — somebody who talked about having multicultural dishes in the cafeteria. Do you have any program like that at all? Does your cafeteria do that, for instance?

           The reason I'm asking is a gazillion years ago, in the dark ages, I actually went to school in Hawaii. Our cafeteria did different ethnic dishes every week, and there was a whole day devoted to that.

           J. Pathamanathan: Hi. My name is Jahahan. I just didn't hear the question.

           V. Roddick: When you mention about multicultural dishes in the cafeteria, does your cafeteria do that at all, or is it just the usual fare, as they say? Because maybe that's something that could be done with parents — I don't know whether that's a possibility — and students participating. That's what we used to do.

           J. Pathamanathan: Well, we don't really get multicultural food that much, so it's hard to have a variety of choices.

           V. Roddick: Okay. Thank you very much.

           The team sports that you were just talking about, does the school system, per se, ever go out and ask either local businesses or some of the industries available to sponsor certain teams or certain sports in a school or in a group of schools?

           J. Van: I'm John Van. Yeah, our school does go around and ask people to sponsor — for instance, Adidas. Gatorade sponsors us as well to help with some of the funding. That's good, I guess.

[0930]

           V. Roddick: With the family management, along with John Nuraney…. There were quite a lot of students that mentioned they needed families to participate and to help them, encourage them. Is that part of your course, too — how to bring families and students together to work a bit better in participating in healthy…? Not just health, but overall things. You know, so that you actually speak to each other. Sometimes that's difficult.

           A. Learmonth: My name is Amy Learmonth. If we are going to learn that, we haven't started on it, but we are learning more how to read into people, how to encourage them to eat healthy and how to encourage our families and get support from them. A lot of it really is encouragement to do physical activity and things like that. If they won't support you in joining a team or…. Some families will even punish people for staying out too late because they're playing sports and things like that. A lot of encouragement is needed in order for people to maintain an active lifestyle.

           V. Roddick: So it's a capital "E" Education and a small "e" education. Can I do one more? It's two things combined, which is the scheduling issue.

           The U.K. has a fabulous chef called Jamie Oliver, who is The Naked Chef. He single-handedly turned around the school system with how they serve their food, what they cook — everything. Maybe that's something that you could start right here at Sir Charles Tupper: make a huge social change in how the cafeterias — not just yours but General Brock…. Because that's education, and that would really be terrific.

           All right, Ralph, I won't say another word.

           R. Sultan (Chair): I'm sure The Naked Chef idea would create quite a stir at Sir Charles Tupper.

           D. Hayer: My question is for Isabelle. She talked about eating healthy and also exercising and staying fit. I'd like to find out: what type of healthy food would you like to see in elementary schools? Also, do the parents drive all the kids to school, or do they walk? Are they allowed to do some exercise in elementary school currently or not?

           I. Tupas: My name is Isabelle Tupas. I would like to see more salads and maybe some granola bars and oranges and apples. In our school a lot of people walk instead of drive.

           C. Wyse: I'm going to narrow it down to one individual.

           Anne, I want to give you a heads-up. My question is going to be directed towards you. I want to acknowledge some of the points that were made here around awareness, around encouraging the support necessary for being healthy and the cost both for exercising and healthy food — the education and responsibility between both the community as well as the school.

           An individual in their presentation mentioned some concern about safety. The point that Anne made — and this will get into my question, Anne…. Is it practical in urban settings, like where Tupper is, to encourage people to walk back and forth to school, to take exercise outside of the actual school environment so that there's

[ Page 204 ]

a bridge in that area? Being from the interior, I would very much appreciate your insight on behalf of Tupper to help me out.

           A. Neyra: Hi. My name is Anne Neyra. Yes, I do think it's possible. I live about a block away from the school — right? — so it's not very hard for me. I think that a lot of kids do walk to school, so it's not a huge problem. When I go out of my house in the morning, I see a bunch of kids walking down that huge hill up there. So I'm pretty sure that that's okay for them.

[0935]

           M. Sather: I'll address my question to the group of five students that came up, but if any of you want to comment, that's fine. I'm wondering if you're aware of a recent court decision regarding extra fees, if you want to call it that, in schools such as for musical instruments or field trips. The court decision said that school districts could no longer charge for those.

           I'm wondering if you've been discussing that at all in school. What effect do you think it might have? I mentioned some of you saying that school fees should be eliminated, and that may be one of the results of that. Do you think that's a good thing, or will that have an effect of there being fewer classes, for example, if the fees can't be paid?

           J. Van: I'm John Van, again. Yeah, we have been discussing the topic of how they're going to pay for those things — musical instruments and stuff. However, we still want to go out on field trips in PE 12. We have lifelong activities to do in sports and stuff like that. Rather than doing basketball and soccer all over again…. It can get tedious after a couple of years, since you've done it since grade 1 until grade 10. In grades 11 and 12, you still want to go out, but it's just that we want to make it affordable and attractive to everyone — right?

           K. Conroy: A lot of my questions have been answered already, because I'm last, so I won't ask them all. One of the interesting things…. About a week ago it was on TV that there was contemplation around taxing junk food. They interviewed a lot of students. Most of the students said that they didn't like the idea. They wanted the right to eat chips if they wanted to eat them.

           I was just really pleased to hear every one of you who spoke about that say you think that junk food should be taxed and that it should cost higher than healthy foods. That was really good to hear. It sort of put to shame those other students that got on TV and said that they didn't think so.

           One of the other things that came up loud and clear was the issue around poverty and low income and that you can't afford healthy food when you're on low income. A number of you mentioned it, and I think you're right. That's something that, as people in government in Victoria, we need to work on, because it is an issue.

           My question is for the sports group. The cost of participating in mainstream sports is high, and one of the sports that has really taken off in our region is skateboarding. It's not as high, and all you've got to buy is a board. Well, the insurance costs can be high. I don't know if you know that Jesse Evans is from our area. He's one of the top skateboarders in the world right now.

           I just wonder if the non-traditional type of sports is something that you think should be encouraged in the school system, to give people other opportunities to participate in things that might not be quite as expensive and that might get you out doing something else besides the typical mainstream sports.

           J. Lam: My name is Joyce. Sorry, can you repeat the question one more time?

           K. Conroy: What do you think about the idea of incorporating non-traditional sports into the school system? The one that comes to mind is something like skateboarding — just to get kids more involved in other forms of sport that aren't quite as expensive.

           J. Lam: I think that is a good idea, but I believe that most students want a feel for all of the activities out there — like rock climbing. I don't believe other students would normally go outside and pay however much money it costs to go rock climb by themselves. But we here are very fortunate in that we go in PE, and we've got the opportunity to do a lot of different activities. Even if we don't have enough money to pay $100, we give students the opportunity to pay in four payments or make it convenient for them.

           Also, I believe that parents should have more involvement, because a lot of habits — like eating habits or physical activity habits — come from our parents. If our parents do it, we'll follow them. We develop that at an early age. So maybe if our parents bring us out and go biking normally, we'd do that.

[0940]

           R. Sultan (Chair): Let me conclude this session with the students from General Brock and Sir Charles Tupper with a thank-you, again, for inviting us into your magnificent school. I grew up in this neighbourhood down on 13th. I felt instinctively that if we came into a school such as Sir Charles Tupper, we would not only be welcomed but we'd hear from the very best that the public school system in British Columbia has to offer. We sometimes say that the students are our future. I would say that, based on the testimony we've received from you today, our future is in very good hands. So thank you.

           Thank you again for the arrangements made by your principal Iona Whishaw; Rob Ferguson, who organized much of the sequencing, as I understand it; and my friend Jan Harvey, who also assisted with the background work.

           Now we will move on to presenters and witnesses who are other than in the public school system. The students, of course, are welcome to stay and listen to the rest of the proceedings, but we have a series of

[ Page 205 ]

witnesses, beginning with Christine Anderson. My question is — Jonathan reminds us: is Christine Anderson in the audience?

           Okay. Now we're going to have Christine Anderson, who will begin by introducing herself.

           C. Anderson: I'm Christine Anderson, and I'm a parent, and I'm here with a personal idea. I believe that one of our greatest opportunities to combat childhood obesity is in our support of school garden programs.

           R. Sultan (Chair): Christine, could you just explain who you are and who you're representing?

           C. Anderson: I'm representing myself. I'm a parent, and I am an advocate for school gardens. I'm from Vancouver; I live in East Vancouver.

           One of our greatest opportunities to combat childhood obesity is in our support of school garden programs. Some of the main benefits of a school garden include the hands-on opportunity to educate children in healthy food choices. Gardening creates the alternative for children to participate in a physical, non-competitive and stimulating learning experience. By growing their own food, children can connect to the earth and find a respect for it and themselves. They take pride in being part of the creation of food that tastes fresh, is nutritious and that, under other circumstances, may have been passed up as yucky at the dinner table.

           Gardening is a tactile, learning opportunity. It creates a new mindset that learning is fun this way and tastes good too. Children don't feel the pressure of learning under these circumstances. It is the ultimate tool in teaching children. The possibilities for it to be integrated into the current curriculum are endless.

           Rather than children becoming involved in segregated or individual activities like TV or video games, gardening provides the perfect opportunity for children to come together within a combined effort, which creates equal opportunities and a cooperative environment–learning experience.

           School gardens provide an alternative avenue for children to gain self-confidence. Children who may not excel at academics or sports may find the garden a wonderful area to become proficient in and to shine. School gardens teach social responsibility by allowing the opportunity for children to become integral parts of their community by growing fresh food for their own school meal programs and for local food banks and other community meal programs. School gardens teach the importance of urban agriculture and local food production, which are important factors in healthy living choices and the environment.

[0945]

           I have some points about how to support school gardens — my suggestions. One of the biggest ones would be to create across-the-board standards that consist of the insulation and maintenance of a school garden at every public school in the province. Maintenance, for example, does not mean that the school board comes and digs, plants and weeds. Maintenance like this is a perfect physical opportunity for students. They just need the tools and materials to be provided to them.

           Provide resources to teachers to integrate the curriculum into the school garden, maybe by means of an urban agriculture expert. That could be a way. Update antiquated rules regarding school gardens at the board level. I think the VSB right now has a rule that says no edible plants should be growing on school grounds, which is not a very good one.

           Educate teachers and the public about the benefits of school gardens and allow for inclusion of community to maintain and benefit from the school gardens — for example, the school PAC, local food bank harvesters, fruit tree project, local food and security institutes, community meal programs and community garden cooperatives.

           In conclusion, we parents and teachers already understand the benefits of the school garden and have worked creatively towards current installations. The school gardens that are installed right now are testaments to the will of these individuals, as current support is almost nonexistent at the government and board levels. Failed school gardens are the result of many good intentions but no top-down support to continue this valuable resource.

           Although the initial investment into school gardens may seem high, it is a wise endeavour when considering the benefits our children will receive from endless opportunities to learn in a hands-on, cooperative environment about their health, the health of the earth and the opportunity to gain compassion towards all living things.

           I have several references. Evergreen has just produced a document, and it pretty much backs up everything that I am saying. It's available on their website. It's called Grounds for Action: Promoting Physical Activity through School Ground Greening in Canada. It gives actual figures on schools that have gardens and on how much more physically active the children are at these schools.

           R. Sultan (Chair): Thank you, Christine. We will hold the questions, again, until after we've heard from all the witnesses, if I may, because we do have a rather extensive list. We would thank Christine very much for her contribution this morning.

           The next witness we have is John Yalowica, if I've pronounced that correctly, from the Head Start tennis school program.

           J. Yalowica: I've been involved in recreation for a long time at many different levels. I've worked in the hospitals as a recreation therapist for about 11 years. I don't do that now, but I've worked with parks and recreation, and I have a program called Head Start tennis that runs inside K-to-7 schools and sometimes in K-to-12. The program that I operate is affordable. I think it is affordable, but for some schools, sometimes it just doesn't work out that way.

           R. Sultan (Chair): What kind of money are we talking about, John?

[ Page 206 ]

           J. Yalowica: It's $8 for four gym sessions. So if the school is running it for 30 minutes or 45 minutes, it doesn't matter to me. They have to establish whatever the session is, and then I do four sessions, and it's $8. That's $2 per session.

[0950]

           In most cases, schools have been able to afford that. They either charge the children, or the PAC pays for half of it, and the child pays the other half. That works out pretty good.

           What I've found in my program of teaching over the years is that when I first started coaching, I was looking for the good players and the competitiveness and all that. But as I taught more, I discovered that children just want to have fun with it. They want to have a good time and get some exercise. They don't really say they want to get exercise, but they have fun with the game.

           I got better as a coach at coaching children who weren't so competitive. I tried to find ways to make them want to have a good time with it, without feeling like they have to beat the person across the net or beat their friend next door. In my own experience competing, the ugly part of it was when players got so competitive that they got mean. So when I coach kids now, and I also coach an indoor program for the parks and recreation….

           I have a class right now, and those kids really work hard. They're not all great at it, but they're all having a good time. A father told me the other day: "My daughter is not really very good at this, but she likes coming here." That told me that she was having a good time.

           That's a solution to some of the problems where our system filters kids down into a competitive venue where they're left out if they're not competitive or if they're not winning or if they don't make the team. A majority of kids don't make the team, because the team is not big. It's like hockey. It's like tennis. It's like any of those sports. There is a top 100 in the world, and the rest of them are whatever.

           The bottom line is that there is only one number-one player at any one time, so all those other people aren't. For kids, that message in sports is delivered to them all the time. It puts demands on them, even though they won't say…. They'll just say, "I don't want to play," and they won't play because they don't feel comfortable when it's happening.

           That's what I've seen in my own programs with kids. I do my best to make them feel comfortable and feel like they're just having a good time and that they're accepted, even if they're not the best player. As a coach I've learned how to take a group of 30 kids, and I can find the ones who want to be competitive. So I say, "Well, you guys can keep score," as long as they behave and they're not getting mean to each other. I won't even say anything about competing with the others. They're just having a good time. I don't have to say anything. They're playing back and forth and learning tennis and having a good time.

           My biggest point here is the competition part, the affordability and the good coaching. I'm only one person. I have one other coach that I rely on, who is really good at doing what he does.

           My program indoors has grown 50 percent in one year. It only started a year ago. That's kind of a testimony to what I'm talking about, trying to include everybody. That program is a little more expensive, because it is a parks and recreation program, but there is also a built-in discount for people who can't afford to pay the regular price. They pay 50 percent. But for the school program I'm talking about, the Head Start program, it's hard to make that cheaper than it is. The Head racquet company sponsors it, so they supply all the equipment for me. They supply all the racquets. Then there are racquets at almost a 50-percent discount for kids who need to buy a racquet later.

           It's not going to take me very long to say what I have to say about this. That's almost all of it.

           R. Sultan (Chair): You've said it very well, John. I suspect the committee as a whole would say you've made a very important point.

           J. Yalowica: Just one other thing. There's an after-school program I'm trying to start. I've had it before. Kids loved it; parents loved it. I think there are a few things going on there where the parents who can't pick up their children right after school are concerned that their children are involved in healthy activities.

[0955]

           The after-school program is one that I think could work out as long as the price is kept reasonable and the participation is there. It serves a lot of purposes. It keeps the children away from the computer, because there are times of the day when kids have access to things that sometimes aren't the healthiest choices.

           After school, my son — what does he want to do? Eat and play on the computer. I'm a parent that participates with him, so I get him out on the tennis court, and we hit balls. Once he's there for two minutes, you can't get him off the court, so that's good. The computer is always a choice for him, and that's been a struggle lately because he loves to do that. So the after-school program is something I'm working on as well.

           I've had to struggle with my own son, so I've got some personal experience there, too, as well as professional experience. It's a big thing for parents to have to work with that. I'm just fortunate to have some skills in that area so that I can nurture him in the right direction, and he's doing fine. He's doing great. He likes the computer, but he likes to play tennis too.

           I never pushed him very hard. That's interesting. He was very good at every sport he did, but he wasn't competitive, and he would just go ballistic if he had to play for points. One day I was at the indoor court. I was teaching this young boy that was quite good at tennis, and I brought my son to play with him. They were playing, and they started to drag their feet a bit and not work very hard. As a coach I didn't like that, so I said: "Why don't you play for points?" He played one point, two points, three points, and the next ball hit the ceiling. He was so upset because he was losing to this person. I thought: "So he doesn't like competing, but he likes to hit the ball." So that message kept coming back.

[ Page 207 ]

           I could end there, or I could talk forever on this issue. But that's about it in a nutshell.

           R. Sultan (Chair): John, thank you for an important message, and we will come back to you with questions later.

           Our next witness on the schedule is from the city of Coquitlam — Geri Briggs-Simpson. Is Geri in the audience? Apparently not.

           We will move on to the next witness from Fueling Catering, Helen Dolmat.

           Perhaps you could introduce yourselves more fully and explain what you do, both of you.

           H. Dolmat: Good morning. Thank you very much for providing this opportunity for us. I'm actually here primarily representing my children. My name is Helen Dolmat, and I'm the mother of three children — 11, 13 and 14.

           K. Daw: I'm Kimberley Daw. We're business partners, so I'm here to explain our beliefs and philosophies on food in schools.

           H. Dolmat: Today we're business partners, but what led us to today is my past 15 years in the school system and volunteering in various capacities with sports associations, being 30 years in the food service business and making an effort to instil in my children the importance of making healthy choices. The reason that we're where we are today is that during our elementary school years, what we experienced was a struggle in trying to connect what we were trying to do at home with promoting healthy eating and what was happening in the school environment.

           What I'd like to do today is perhaps bring a voice to the concerns that I have as a parent in relation to the food programs that are run at elementary schools primarily for the purpose of social, fun events. I'm not talking about the school food programs that are in place to address food safety but rather the food programs we call hot lunch programs at elementary school.

[1000]

           What I'd like to discuss is that I have, as I mentioned, three children. It occurred to me a couple of years ago that my middle child, a boy, was struggling with making proper choices when it came to nutrition. Obviously, as a parent and an adult, I understood that it's not all that easy to make the right choices when you're presented with alternatives that make it difficult to make the right choice. So I would send…. I would do my best at home, but obviously outside the home environment we're bombarded with…. What's the word I'm looking for?

           A Voice: Unhealthy choices?

           Some Voices: Advertising?

           H. Dolmat: Yes, advertising. "Temptations" is the word I was looking for, yeah. Relating to the things we find really easy to choose that are basically to do with fast, fried, tasty, filling at the moment, convenient…

           K. Daw: Fun, colourful.

           H. Dolmat: …fun and colourful food. Anyway, I'm going to try and cut this short because I'm rambling. But off my son would go to school. In grades 1, 2, 3 and 4 we had the hot lunch program forms coming home, where we get to choose what we have for lunch once a week or once every two weeks. The choices basically are things like Dairy Queen and Pizza Hut, Boston Pizza and those kinds of things.

           I actually have a sample of an order form, which is very typical. I should take the name of the school off, but I would like you to have a look at it. It's not with the view to point fingers or anything like that, but just to acknowledge that what we're doing is….

           We have an environment, I believe, that is fairly conducive to persuading kids to make choices. I think that in a social setting kids will sometimes — for instance, if it's food — pick something to eat that they wouldn't necessarily eat but for the fact that everyone else is eating it. I think our school setting is a really good place to be able to support good habits when it comes to eating food.

           I'm just really here to say that what Kim and I are going to be doing and are trying to do is make some changes so that, first of all, we can persuade kids that it's actually cool to eat healthy food, that the easy choice of pizza, hot dogs and burgers isn't necessarily the right choice. But we understand that we can't just tell kids that that's not the right choice. We have to change their minds. I think there are a couple of words that come to mind. "Habit" is one of them.

           You know, in any given week my kids are out in public — outside of the home, I should say — three or four times in a situation where they have to eat. Nine times out of ten they're not presented with healthy choices in those instances, so the habit of eating healthy is watered down by, obviously…. It lies in the fact that kids are out and about a lot more than they used to be and that kind of thing.

           My feeling is that what we could do is try and provide in their school environment the opportunities to grow the habit of healthy eating rather than placing another opportunity for them to make the habit difficult for them to make the right choices. I'd like to see the face of hot lunch programs change in B.C. Our vision is to actually include in that the opportunity for children to learn the reasons why they should make the choices and actually to experience the opportunity of eating good things so that the habits are formed, so that it doesn't continue to be a difficult thing for them.

           A grade 1 student ordering a hot lunch, or a parent ordering a hot lunch for a grade 1 student, isn't going to change anything against — for instance, opting out of the program…. They have the pressure of the whole class, and they want to join in.

           The other thing where there is a bit of an issue for me personally is the constant necessity of schools to

[ Page 208 ]

use unhealthy choices like bake sales and those kinds of things in order to raise funds for the school.

           I'm sorry I'm rambling. I don't think I've been quite as concise as I meant to be, so maybe I'll just stop there and then wait for questions.

           Is there anything you'd like to add?

[1005]

           K. Daw: Basically, what we are doing is trying to make healthy eating cool at school. We're trying to bring healthy choices and healthy options to lunch programs that are currently running less healthy things. That's what our idea is, basically. Maybe we should eliminate some of the junkier foods that we're offering at fundraisers and hot lunch programs and substitute them with healthy, nutritious choices.

           R. Sultan (Chair): Thank you. I have questions I want to ask, but I will ask them later.

           I call upon the corporation of Delta, parks, recreation and culture — Bess Ribeiro and Jennifer Taylor. Welcome. Perhaps you can tell us a little bit about what you do and where you do it.

           J. Taylor: I'm Jennifer Taylor. I'm the fitness programmer for the corporation of Delta — Delta parks, rec and culture.

           B. Ribeiro: I'm Bess Ribeiro. I'm the recreation programmer for community, sports and some special events in the recreation centres there.

           J. Taylor: We're here today to talk about where we are in Delta so far, and what we want to do. Delta is a registered active community. We are committed to increasing physical activity in the community of Delta by 20 percent by 2010.

           We've taken an inventory of physical activity that we offer the public so far. We realize that we are doing a lot, but there's a lot more we can do to make our community more active.

           Motivating sedentary youth and children is going to be a main focus of what we want to accomplish. Childhood obesity and youth obesity are obviously on the rise and have been for years. Childhood and adolescent obesity are now an epidemic.

           To combat this, we currently offer programs such as swimming, fitness, gymnasium and outdoor programs. We're finding that we're attracting children who are already active. From here, we need to attract children who are not active and who are sedentary.

           The corporation of Delta has introduced the grade 5 program, which allows free admission of any grade 5 student in Delta to our recreation facility and to any of our drop-in recreation programs, which is a fantastic option and is a start.

           From here, although those challenges to motivate those who are sedentary are truly there, we have noticed that there are a few barriers. Those barriers for this target group are a limited level of involvement from the schools in areas of physical activity and healthy lifestyle coaching. It was fantastic to hear that they have some family activities in the school here, but bringing that to the community will definitely be a challenge.

           There's limited education for parents, teachers and children on the importance of physical activity and a healthy lifestyle. We find that there are limited transportation options for children and limited disposable income.

           There's a limited promotion and support for local health practitioners, and there's always that limit in attracting those sedentary youth and figuring out how to bring them into our centres.

           Current research supports and suggests that combatting these issues should start at an early age. Start educating families and children early, so these children can grow up into young adults — like we've seen here today — with a very bright knowledge of what physical activity and healthy lifestyle is, and carry it into their adulthood.

           All this said, to reach that goal, Delta would like to implement the following programs, and this is what we're working towards. Bess is going to capitalize on a few of them.

           B. Ribeiro: These programs would incorporate physical activity for both the children and the youth in the schools, both at the recreation centres and the schools. We're trying to take more and more of our programs to the schools. We find that they really are our support system and are marketing there.

           We'd like to reintroduce play. I'm also part of the B.C. Recreation and Parks Association and have just taken the courses on High Five, which fosters the healthy development for children, especially the middle years, age six to 12.

           We're trying to get play back in there — skipping, hopscotch, the fun games that I played.

[1010]

           Involvement in the active games that involve Canada's Food Guide. We'd like sport-specific programs to work on skill development, but just focus. It's not about winning this one. There are those sports for competitiveness, but this is the fun we're trying to…. Family-oriented activities that involve mom, dad and kids. Options for these activities — before, during and after school — at school are key, although we are operating at our local recreation centres.

           However, as Jennifer has mentioned, the transportation, just the general daily life of parents and working…. Unfortunately, I have to drive my daughter to school because I have to get to work as well. I grew up in Vancouver. However, in North Delta it's a bit further to get them to school in time.

           Ensuring children and youth understand that physical activity comes in many forms. They don't have to go and run a marathon. They don't have to play competitive sports all the time. Anything — walking the dog, as we've heard earlier.

           J. Taylor: Like Bess has said, it's the idea of introducing non-competitive activities. A lot of children

[ Page 209 ]

aren't cut out for the competitive sports, so introduce these programs to build self-esteem and confidence and ensure these sedentary youth are having ongoing success in any activity that they do choose to do to keep them going.

           Partnering the schools in the community to offer to send our recreation staff to their schools to introduce a variety of activities is definitely an option. We do that with schools that have a budget for that and to schools where kids will bring in a toonie so an instructor can come and teach some yoga for an hour. But that's only a select few schools.

           Reaching out to schools and specializing with recreation programs. So bringing a sample karate class, a sample yoga class, a sample hip-hop class to their schools and saying: "Hey, come down to the rec centre. You can do this."

           B. Ribeiro: If I can just interrupt in that part. What we've just done…. I'm meeting with the parent advisory committees now, and I'm trying to take some specialized programs that are not the typical sports — fencing or karate or hip-hop dance — and go to the PAC.

           I've been to one of the PACs to do this as a test pilot. Go to them and say: "We'd like to bring in fencing for the day." We'll charge the fencing instructor, and the PAC will pay for that. Then throughout the PE class for that one day, they will be introduced to fencing for the day. They, in turn, will go home, hopefully, and say, "That was great. I really enjoyed it," and they had fun. That's perfect.

           Other than that, they can always have the opportunity if they phone a recreation program. We are so keen and passionate, Jennifer and I, to get things going. Money is always an issue, but we're trying to say: "Do you want it at the school? Do you want it at the rec centre? We can do it if we have a few involved and interested."

           J. Taylor: Right. We're also looking at introducing…. We already have a health and wellness lecture series going on at various sites, but getting more specific to dealing with the childhood obesity issue — so having nutrition for kids as a health and wellness lecture series. Parents can come after work for an hour that registered nutritionists….

           Involving someone from Shapedown, Children's Hospital, to come in and inform the community about what the Shapedown program is. It has been quite successful, and it's something people should definitely know about.

           Definitely, resources are available, providing them for people. Having guest speakers — local Olympians, local athletes — to come in and tell kids how cool activity is and how fun it can really be.

           All this said, I truly believe it can be done with passionate people such as ourselves, but we need to partner with everyone in our community — local physicians, nutritionists, counsellors, school boards, parent advisory committees, teachers, Boys and Girls Clubs, Girl Guides, Boy Scouts, community businesses, local church and youth groups.

           As an active community we all need to partner and get this vision going as to what we do want to accomplish as a group. The active community committee for Delta is planning to meet with all the partners in our community of Delta. From here we want to try and create a vision and create what we want to do as a partnership in the future.

           Successful partnerships and working relationships with all of these people will ensure success if everyone has that same goal. The vision is clear that that's want we want to do. We just need to get that connect. We need to create that support system in the community. Therefore, I feel — and I know Bess feels — that'll be the key to combatting childhood obesity.

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           The only thing that I've found after…. I mean, I had a meeting with the Fraser Health unit yesterday as an active community leader. In the lower mainland we had an active communities leader from everywhere with the Fraser Health unit in Guildford. Sitting around talking about this initiative was amazing. The same thing kept recurring. We want to create the strong partnerships, but it's almost like we need a full-time position or a couple of full-time positions within our community — the corporation of Delta, for instance — to devote their time to active communities, to making sure these partners stay connected, to making sure that we can give what we plan to give.

           We're so passionate about it, and we have so many responsibilities in our jobs. This is something that you can't do off the side of your desk. You need some more support, obviously, to create strong partnerships within communities.

           B. Ribeiro: The last thing I would want to say is…. Personally, I have an obese daughter. I've gone to the doctors the last couple of years to ask them for support. I'm trying everything I can. Being in this field, I'm trying very hard.

           She's now on the wait-list for Shapedown, and that is a year wait-list. We would like to work with Shapedown — to have them come and do a satellite program. Whatever they need, Jennifer and I are willing to do, so parents have opportunities to get a little bit of help before they can get more professional help.

           If school districts and the health professions are backing us up…. If I had gone to the doctor two years ago and she had said to me — or, hopefully, to another parent, "You need to contact your local recreation centre. They have a great program…."

           We've tried naming programs "Kids on the Move" or "Fit, Food and Fun," and no one registers. We're trying. We're just not getting the rest of the community to buy into it. Yes, we know it costs money and parents have to drive their children there, but we are willing to go there. We're just getting roadblocks.

           R. Sultan (Chair): I'm sure we will have questions in the question period. I believe our next witness will be Dina Howell of school district 43.

           Welcome Dina. Could you explain where school district 43 is and what you do?

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           D. Howell: It's Coquitlam. I'm not representing the district as a delegate. I happened to read the ad that you guys had in the local paper.

           I'm very passionate about physical activity — maintaining physical activity with our kids. As a teacher, I e-mailed our district — we don't even have a PE coordinator — someone at the district level, and I asked if I could go, just to have the time from school today and go speak on this.

           I want to make that clear: I'm not a delegate. I'm just a concerned PE teacher, and I have a few suggestions and comments. I've actually written it out in sort of a speech form because it's easiest for me, so I'll just go ahead.

           Good morning. As many other people who have spoken this morning, I, too, am very concerned about the health of our children in B.C. today and, more importantly, about the rising obesity rate.

           My name is Dina Howell, and I've taught PE for 16 years in B.C. I have taught in middle school and am currently teaching PE 9, 10 and 11, as well as fitness 11 for girls. That's a course we just started last year at our school to address the need for more physical activity for girls in the senior grades who would not otherwise enrol in any senior PE course — at least they tell us that. I've also been a swimming, volleyball and soccer coach in this school and community.

           My passion for keeping kids healthy extends beyond my job as well. As a mother of two children, one of whom just started kindergarten, I want to make sure that my kids stay fit and healthy during their public school years.

           I know that there are many reasons why kids aren't as fit or as nutritionally healthy as they were ten years ago. We can point fingers at video games, excessive television watching, parents who work all day and have little time to ensure that their kids get daily exercise, as well as the seemingly unaffordable high cost of extracurricular activities.

           I know you have heard about these issues. However, my argument is that if we can't offer kids some consistent daily activity and good nutrition outside school hours, when families struggle with finding money to deliver them, then we must mandate schools to deliver better and more consistent programs to do so.

           Physical activity and nutrition education must be budgeted for and delivered to schools more effectively if we want our kids to be healthy and if we want to control future medical costs. How do we do it? Here are my suggestions.

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           First, have the Ministry of Education mandate that all school districts provide students the 147 minutes of PE instruction — or even better, physical activity, because PE instruction sometimes incorporates knowledge, where we spend some theory time — as outlined in the current curriculum guidelines for PE.

           Also known as the IRP or integrated resource package, this public school PE curriculum guideline states that — this is a quote from the IRP on the ministry website: "…schools are expected to allocate 10 percent of instructional time to the subject." So 10 percent of the instructional day…. This 10 percent calculates to about 147 minutes a week or 30 minutes a day.

           Because students are required to take PE in grades 9 and 10, we know they're getting the suggested 147 minutes, and often more, in the secondary schools in those grades. However, students in elementary and middle schools do not consistently meet this expectation.

           When I e-mailed colleagues from all levels of schools in Coquitlam, I was told by two middle-school PE specialists that they are lucky if they can get even a hundred minutes a week, which is taught in two 50-minute classes. Other elementary teachers told me that they rarely get more than two or three 30-minute PE classes a week. Even worse, in one case a teacher who was delivering daily PE of 30 minutes a week was told that he could better spend the time teaching math or reading.

           It's clear to me that PE is not being delivered as our ministry's IRP says it should. I know my own anecdotal findings are not unusual. Even in the ministry's own November 2001 report titled Physical Education Curriculum Review Report, the ministry found that, "A lack of teacher and administrator priority is given to physical education," and that: "A significant number" — 74 percent of schools — "do not appear to be allocating the ministry-recommended 10 percent of instructional time to physical education." That really worried me. This appears on page 5 of the report.

           We can blame the climbing B.C. rates on factors outside schools, but before spending money on other initiatives, let's start using our school taxes to ensure that programs be delivered as the ministry has already expected us to do.

           As a parent, if I read the IRP and assume that my child is getting 30 minutes of activity a day in school, I may not be as concerned about ensuring that they get any more physical activity after school. But if my child doesn't get the PE time during school hours and I can't provide it to them on a particular day, then they will get none.

           Besides making PE mandatory from kindergarten to secondary school, how do we ensure that the program will be effective? This leads me to my next point.

           If we already have a curriculum that — as the 2001 report found — is highly recommended and well put together and can keep kids healthy and fit, it's not the curriculum but the delivery of it that's a problem. We have to hold schools partly accountable for the rising obesity rate if they are not delivering a physical activity program that parents think they are getting.

           Therefore, what we have to do to get this curriculum to the kids is to reinstitute PE coordinators in all districts and PE specialists in all schools throughout the province. I know that a lot of students have talked about that. PE specialists in secondary schools are a given, except in very rare situations, but they are a rarity in many districts' elementary and middle schools.

           Due to severe budget cutbacks, many districts, including my own, lost their PE coordinators. Their

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jobs were to oversee that quality PE programs be delivered in all schools as well as to facilitate workshops to help specialists, non-specialists or classroom teachers get or upgrade skills needed to teach a quality PE program.

           I know that school districts are allotted money by the provincial government to spend it where it is needed. Certainly, areas such as literacy, numeracy, special education and technology do need financial support to ensure that we have educated children. However, areas like physical education tend to be ousted first because parents and district officials erroneously believe that kids will be active on their own time.

           We know this isn't the case for a lot of children. In fact, many parents are too afraid to let kids play alone on their own neighbourhood streets. Also, PE isn't going to get you a job or make you smarter, they think — although research can dispute that too — so it gets cut first.

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           Ask any PE coordinator here today — and I believe there are only a few in the province now — and they will tell you that their job as promoters and facilitators of health and physical activity is crucial, not only to the health of children in their districts but also to their academic success. They know because they have the research to prove it.

           Just as we need coordinators back in all of our school districts, we muster government to mandate that every elementary and middle school have a resident PE specialist. These specialists provide many services that promote better health to our schools' children. Specialists have physical education degrees, have expertise in a variety of physical activities and games and are often immersed in physical pursuits themselves so that they are great models of healthy living. Because they love physical activity, they tend to promote it passionately and make it enjoyable.

           As a former middle-school specialist, I taught PE to the majority of the students in the school. However, in cases where I had to teach my core subject, English, and was not available to teach my colleagues' classes, I was at least able to hold after-school workshops to teach these classroom teachers some skills they needed to deliver a solid, well-balanced and active PE program or, at the very least, to provide them with a very detailed unit plan so that they had very little preparation to do themselves.

           I bring this up because even in the 2001 report, which I alluded to earlier, it states that: "Significant portions of the PE curriculum are not being taught," and "Implementation is hindered by a lack of resources and a lack of teacher expertise." That's page 6 of the report.

           Expertise in PE is precisely what PE coordinators and specialist teachers provide. This expertise leads to a higher-quality PE program that is likely to engage children and thus keep them healthier or at least gear them toward making physical activity a priority in their daily lives.

           My third suggestion comes from a colleague who asked me to speak on his behalf. He states that nothing really gets done in this province when it comes to educational reform unless we see test assessment scores that motivate us to act. He suggests that because parents respond to test scores and newspapers make them public knowledge — which, therefore, puts pressure on government and, in turn, prompts change — we should include fitness testing in our provincial fundamental skills assessments, which are administered to all grades 4 and 7 students.

           He suggests that we should also test students' fitness levels after any new initiatives and programs aimed at reducing obesity have been implemented in school, or else we're to measure whether they're working and then, again, how to improve them. My guess is that more and better-quality PE versus less would be needed.

           My last suggestion was actually to reduce junk food and make it more expensive, as a lot of the students had said. That idea came from my fitness 11 for girls class. They were really adamant that they needed healthier food at a much lower cost because kids will just buy whatever is affordable to them.

           One of the last things I wanted to talk about — and I just thought about it — was that I'm really concerned that my fitness 11 for girls class is going to go. I've had my third class now, three semesters of it, and the girls are really liking it. They're having a hard time because a lot of them are really unfit, but as we do more, they're starting to enjoy being healthier. We do a lot of discussion on healthy eating as well.

           One of my concerns is that now that we cannot ask them to pay for this course — money which would go to having them do off-campus activities like going to women's fitness centres and going to recreation centres. We have boot-camp instructors come in and do some fun stuff with them. I'm afraid that this course is also going to go by the wayside.

           I've had about 40 girls last year and 50 girls this year sign up for this course. We have about 250 senior girls, so I'm getting about 50 of those. That's a huge percentage. That's 20 percent of those kids that otherwise wouldn't get a daily active program. So I think we need to be able to fund these senior programs somehow.

           So that's it from one teacher's perspective in this day and society where we have so many contributing factors that have made children less healthy. We can't change them all. Obviously, we can't go in and dictate to people how they should eat or how much TV they should have their kids watch. But the government, through schools and with the help of key specialists who are passionate about getting kids fit and truly interested in teaching them about making healthier food choices on a daily basis, can make a difference in combating childhood obesity.

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           After all, just like eating loads of junk food and being sedentary all day becomes a habit, so can participating in daily activity. Once we form the habit to live healthier, we will be healthier. We just need the government to recognize PE as a required daily course that requires the support from coordinators at a district level, specialist

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teachers in each school. PE should not be what in some schools seems to be an optional class that is delivered only if the math gets done on time.

           That's about it. Thank you.

           R. Sultan (Chair): Dina, that was an extraordinarily well written, well documented and hard-hitting presentation. I'm sure we will have questions, but we will have to hold off for a moment while we hear from other presenters. Thank you.

           We next have Dustin Anderson, who is identified on my list as Purple Pirate.

           D. Anderson: Yeah, that's me.

           I want to say thank you for your patience. Thank you for being here. We've all been sitting here for a while, so can we take one minute just to stretch ourselves? I propose we all take our necks and just stretch them to the right a little bit.

           R. Sultan (Chair): Great idea. Stand up and stretch?

           D. Anderson: Yes, stand up. Let's have a quick stretch, because there are more people to come. Let's make sure we're comfortable.

           Then let's stretch to the other side just a little bit. Now take one arm, reach it really high up in the air, and then reach it over to the side just a little bit just to give that back a little bit of a stretch. Then the other side. Okay, now the other way. Then you're going to reach over to your side over just a little bit. Excellent. Now take your hands, clasp them over your head, and take a deep breath.

           Now we can continue. Have a seat. I'm not going to sit, if that's okay, because I'm tired of sitting.

           Who's nervous about my laptop? Boy, could I have a lot of notes in this laptop. It is the new era, so I like to make my notes easier to read.

           My name is Dustin Anderson, and I have a character called the Purple Pirate. I perform for elementary schools a show called the FUNdamentals of Fitness — capital "F," capital "U," capital "N," because fitness should be fun. It should be fun, it should be relevant, and it should be non-competitive. These points have already been made by some wonderful speakers already. The ones from Delta were awesome. I really like the initiatives that are happening there.

           Fun is primary in my shows. When I created them, I created them to focus on fun and relevance for them so that it connects with them. So I support the active living initiative, because ultimately that's what we're here for. It's not just for….

           These gentlemen who were part of the wrestling teams and stuff are part of a culture that I was a part of — active, competitive sports. But that pushes a lot of people away who deserve to explore this body of ours. It's fantastic when we've got the endorphins surging through our veins and we're feeling good.

           The active schools program, Action Schools B.C., is proving that for kids. Getting a daily dose of physical activity is making them better students, better humans. If we're exercising and using this facility that's been given to us, we're going to be happier, and it's going to be less of a cost to our health system, which is obviously a very important thing as well.

           Fun is first and foremost — fun in an environment where children can explore their own physical beings, where they're not under pressure to be completely part of a structure. We're giving a few guidelines so that they play inside the circle. But they can play however they want inside that circle so that they can truly explore something that their body can do. Their bodies are going to operate differently than mine. They're going to operate differently than yours.

           Isn't that true, our students here that are joining us from the secondary school?

           Also, cultural relevance is important. When I was in school in the '70s, we did square-dancing.

           Of the students from the school here, who likes square-dancing? Really, do you like square-dancing?

           A Voice: You get the warm hands.

           D. Anderson: Yeah, warm hands — right? And that was one from the '70s. Thirty years ago it wasn't culturally relevant. Hip hop is. But there is a difficulty in how we present these things, because they're technically difficult.

           If a curriculum is developed and updated along the way, then we can make these movement styles accessible and interesting. Ultimately, that's what it comes down to. It comes back to having fun and, also, non-competitiveness.

[1035]

           I was at the Vancouver Film Festival this week, and I saw a Canadian film called Mystic Ball. This show is about a Canadian man who went to Myanmar and learned a sport called chinlone.

           Chinlone is the national sport of this country. It is the craze. It takes six players. They play in a circle, but it's non-competitive. The whole premise of the sport is that five people circle around the person in the middle solely and their whole goal is to support the soloist. They've got this ball they're kicking up in the air. It's acrobatic; it's dance. It's gorgeous.

           People are into it because it's non-competitive. Nobody is being pushed out. Nobody is the best. Everybody is into it, and the crowds are crazy.

           I personally want to try and incorporate more of that environment. With the Internet, with the information age now, we have plenty of opportunity to explore non-traditional sports like skateboarding, trials riding — like other things that don't cost a ton of money that everybody can get involved in and learn at their own rate.

           I think it's really, really important that we really embrace that. There's lots more outside. I love basketball. I love cycling. I love these sports that are part of our Canadian culture. Hockey is fantastic, but not everybody wants to play those.

           Interjection.

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           D. Anderson: And tennis is fine, too. I'm sorry, John. Tennis is a great sport as well.

           That said, I just want to reiterate: fun, relative and non-competitive. These are three really important keys that we need to take into consideration.

           R. Sultan (Chair): Clerk Kate reminds me of another first we've achieved today. It's not only the first time a legislative committee has been salted with the youth of the province; it's the first time we've had an expert witness who is a pirate. We will have questions later.

           We have Cheeying Ho, who has arrived from Smart Growth B.C. Over to you, Cheeying.

           C. Ho: Good morning. Thank you for having me. Unfortunately, my presentation is a lot more serious, so not as much fun — no hip hop — but hopefully interesting.

           I'm from Smart Growth B.C. What I'd like to talk about today is a little bit about what Smart Growth is, some recent research findings in the area of obesity and health — in particular, related to land use. I'll talk about our Smart Growth B.C. report that we released recently — I'll leave a copy with you — and some of the policies that we can recommend around addressing childhood obesity as well as obesity in the general population, in terms of what provincial and local governments can do.

           I'm sure many of you are familiar with Smart Growth B.C., our organization. We're a provincewide non-profit working with local governments, community organizations and business on better land development. Did you all get a copy of the handout?

           A Voice: Yes.

           C. Ho: Oh, okay. I couldn't use PowerPoint so I just printed a bunch of the slides.

           Smart Growth is basically a collection of development strategies that enhance our quality of life, protect our environment and use tax revenues wisely. I've just listed the ten basic Smart Growth principles that we promote: include mixed land uses in all neighbourhoods, build compact neighbourhoods, provide a variety of transportation choices, create diverse housing opportunities, encourage growth in existing areas as opposed to new areas, preserve open spaces, protect agricultural land, etc.

           I'd like to talk about why childhood obesity is a land use issue. Our previous presenter talked about exercise in high school. I used to be a high school teacher many years ago, and I totally remember all the phys ed classes that people just hated. They were not relevant, they were not fun, and they were competitive. I think those points were really, really important.

           But I'd like to talk about obesity as a land use issue. As I'm sure you're familiar with, in the last 20 years child obesity rates have quintupled in Canada according to the Centre for Health Promotion Studies. Ten percent of Canadian boys and 13 percent of Canadian girls were overweight or obese in 1981. In 2000-2001 it rose to 29 percent of boys and 27 percent of girls.

           Associated with that is the number of fast-food outlets. It has been found it decreases with neighbourhood wealth. Neighbourhoods that tend to have lower incomes have more fast-food joints. Neighbourhoods with higher wealth have fewer fast-food joints. Instead they have a higher incidence or higher access to supermarkets and higher-quality foods — to fresh fruits and vegetables.

[1040]

           Research has also found that there are three times more supermarkets in richer areas than poorer areas. A lot of these studies are American studies. So far the research in Canada is still young, but we're starting to do more research, and we're finding that a lot of it is similar in Canada.

           The next graph that I've got in front of you — I'm sorry if people don't see what I'm talking about — shows maps of obesity rates in Canada. You've probably seen some of this. From 1985 to 2004 — so over 20 years — you can see the rate of obesity increase across Canada. In 1985 most provinces have a fairly low rate of obesity. By the year 2004, just two years ago, you see that a very, very high proportion of people are now considered obese. Again, it's quintupled over the last 20 years or so.

           Organizations such as the Heart and Stroke Foundation are now understanding that there's a relationship, a linkage, between obesity rates and how our built environment is planned and built out. In 2005 the Heart and Stroke Foundation issued a report card called "Has the Suburban Dream Gone Sour?" talking about how car-dependent Americans and Canadians get far less physical activity and are at increased risk of being overweight or obese.

           Individuals living in moderate- to high-density neighbourhoods that have community and commercial services within walking distance of where they live are almost two and a half times more likely to meet the 30-minute minimum daily activity level. So if you're living in areas where you can walk more, you tend to exercise more by just walking around or biking around, instead of being forced to drive around everywhere.

           Smart Growth B.C. just released a report a few months ago called Promoting Public Health through Smart Growth. In our report we examine the relationship between urban form, transportation patterns and physical activity. The report explains how our built environment shapes our transportation choices and in turn our human health.

           We found that planning and investment policies and practices translate, obviously, to how our urban form is built, and that form dictates how we travel. Our transportation and travel behaviour is very related to our physical activity and health.

           Some findings from our report. We found that residents of smart-growth communities — those communities that are more mixed-use and higher-density — walk and bicycle more and drive less than residents of more isolated, automobile-dependent locations. This results in measurably better physical fitness and reduced likelihood of obesity.

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           We actually found through the research that people who live in more mixed-use neighbourhoods can walk more and are less physically inactive. What we found was that the three most important factors linked to increased walking were density, land use mix and connectivity.

           By density we mean how many people or units of housing per acre or per hectare. We found that increased density reduces distances between destinations and the portion of destinations that can be reached by active modes of transportation — so biking, walking, skateboarding, blading. As density increases, per-capita hours and miles or kilometres of automobile travel tend to decline.

           We also found that land use mix was very important. Having a mixed land use pattern is correlated with increased walking and reduced automobile travel. In Vancouver and large urban centres like Vancouver we are pretty good at having mixed land uses. But in very conventional development patterns that we see all over the province, we see residential separated from shops, separated from work, separated from schools. The only way people can get around is by driving. So mix of land uses is very important to encourage people to walk and access things they need to access.

           Street connectivity is the third thing that was very important to encourage physical activity. We found that a more connected roadway, walkway and bikeway system reduces the distances that must be travelled to reach a destination. This is especially important for children and youth. If streets are well connected, it's much easier for kids, especially, to walk. If they're not connected and you have to go from one cul-de-sac to a bigger road to a bigger highway to get somewhere — to school or wherever — then it's just impossible to walk.

           The pictures that are in the next one show destination A to B in two types of developments. In the one on the left the distance from A to B is a typical suburban development pattern. To get from A to B, which is actually the same distance as a crow flies in both graphs, you'd have to travel two kilometres. Usually you'd go from one smaller road to a larger road to a larger road. In the diagram on the right the distance from A to B is much shorter. It's only 0.8 kilometres because the streets are much better connected, and it's easier to walk or to bike there.

[1045]

           I'll go to the fourth page. These two patterns just show a disconnected urban land use pattern compared to a connected land use pattern. Even within a one-kilometre radius, within a disconnected land use pattern, you can only access certain types of services within a one-kilometre radius, and it's much more difficult to get to. In the connected land use pattern, where you have a lot of mixtures of services, it's within a one-kilometre radius where you can walk or bike easily. You can access a lot more things. So obviously, people will tend to walk or bike or board or whatever to their destination if there are more things to access within close range and also if the streets are connected and it's easy to get there.

           Some specific findings from our report. We found that sprawl has been correlated with higher body weights, obesity and their associated diseases. Residents of compact, complete communities achieve more of their recommended minimum requirement for physical activity through daily walking and cycling.

           We've also found that there are some linkages between school siting and children's travel patterns, which is pretty obvious. If the school is located somewhere far away that people cannot access by walking or biking, then they tend to have to drive.

           This is a really interesting finding. Programs to promote physical activity in school and other interventions have only met with limited success. Building the opportunity to be physically active into daily routines through active transportation and access to recreational opportunities is the most effective way to improve community fitness. Having a phys ed class for 45 minutes three times a week is not enough, no matter how exciting or interesting they are. It has to be built into a daily physical activity pattern.

           Another finding is that provision of green space and other recreational amenities also affects physical activity. The graph after that shows that because of our development patterns around the province — this is actually information from Seattle, but it's probably quite similar in most Canadian cities — the average distance that families are travelling to do any type of recreation has increased over the years. Before, maybe 20 years ago, you could just walk down the block to play soccer with your friends or play street hockey with your neighbourhood kids. Now people are actually travelling further to do any type of recreation, and usually they have to drive there, and parents end up being chauffeurs all the time, as I'm sure many of you know.

           I'll just end with some recommendations that we have in addressing childhood obesity. Our work isn't focused on children, but all of these are very relevant to childhood obesity as well as to the general population.

           Since you are all MLAs, the role of provincial government…. I have a bunch of recommendations. We need to strengthen the regional growth strategies legislation and include goals for health in long-term regional land use plans. There are no health goals in regional growth strategies right now.

           We need to provide educational programs on the benefits of compact, walkable communities and the importance of physical activities — for example, safe routes to school.

           We need to ensure that the federal gas tax funds that are being transferred to provinces right now for planning and infrastructure incorporate healthy community planning goals, not just talking about infrastructure for infrastructure's sake.

           We need to ensure the integrity of the ALR legislation to protect local food lands. By protecting food lands and farmland, we can encourage more compact development instead of sprawling further out.

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           We need to fund and assist in the planning of transit and active-living infrastructure rather than major highway projects such as the expansion of the Port Mann that go against healthy community planning objectives.

           We need to revisit Local Government Act legislation to allow municipalities to be more flexible in bylaws such as development cost charges to encourage more healthy community planning.

           We need to facilitate coordination between the Transportation and Health Ministries, as I'm sure the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Health people never talk to each other, and they plan infrastructure for roads and transit very separately for health planning. Those two ministries need to coordinate.

           I won't go through all these other policies, but I've made a bunch of recommendations for policies for local government as well. Some are very relevant, especially for our younger population, kids and youth — for example, creating pedestrian-friendly streets so it's easy and interesting for kids to walk.

           We need to provide not just recreational trails for people to mountain bike, which is great, but we need to make sure there are bike lanes and lots of good sidewalk structure for people to walk as a way of getting around. We should really encourage other modes, like skateboarding and rollerblading, so it's not illegal to skateboard on the sidewalk, for example.

[1050]

           We need to provide efficient public transit and parking management strategies and, basically, just revised zoning codes so that it encourages local governments to do something different to encourage more healthy community planning rather than status quo planning.

           My last slide is just what the Heart and Stroke Foundation is saying as well. The Heart and Stroke Foundation is really looking at the linkages between our built environment and obesity now. So they issued a call to federal and provincial governments as well as to municipalities.

           They've called on the federal government to allocate at least 7 percent of transportation infrastructure funds to active transportation projects and infrastructure — that's a really great idea to allocate a specific amount of money to things like walking trails, sidewalks and bike paths — and on municipalities to fund social infrastructure and active transportation projects that facilitate active living and encourage mixed-use developments and neighbourhood planning and developments that encourage more active living and active transportation.

           They're saying pretty much exactly the same thing as Smart Growth B.C. is saying in terms of building more smart growth and more compact communities and encouraging more active transportation. I'll leave a copy of this report with you, which has got lots more detail, and our website also is on the last page.

           R. Sultan (Chair): I would like to thank Cheeying Ho of Smart Growth B.C. for a very professional presentation. We will have questions later, I'm sure.

           I would just like to take this opportunity to mention Val Roddick who, as referred to a moment ago, had to be called away for a media interview. I think she'll be back. I would also like to welcome to this session of the Select Standing Committee on Health one of our MLA members — a trained physical education teacher — Ms. Katherine Whittred of North Vancouver–Lonsdale.

           So take a bow, Katherine.

           K. Whittred: Thank you, Chair.

           R. Sultan (Chair): Our next presentation, I believe, is Joy Norgard of Active Health Consulting. Welcome to the proceedings, Joy.

           J. Norgard: Thank you very much. I'm really happy to have the opportunity to speak today. I wasn't actually planning on speaking and was invited by someone I met in the city of Burnaby.

           [C. Wyse in the chair.]

           Anyway, I'm a registered dietitian in private practice here in British Columbia and also a mother of two young children. Last year my son started kindergarten. You know, for those of you who have kids and drop them off, all the moms hang around and chit-chat. They found out I was a dietitian. "Oh, well, what do you do in this case? What do you think? What about when your son asks for this; what do you say?"

           I was getting regular questions from these people. I thought: wow, if this many parents at my school have questions, how many parents at other schools have questions? I started to do some research on the Internet to find out what type of resources were available specifically targeting parents of school-age children. I feel that parents of school-age children, especially elementary school–age children, have a really huge role to play in this trend toward childhood obesity — just having the available knowledge and accessibility to make healthy choices.

           I found that a lot of resources on the Internet and through public health agencies are: "Here are things you need to know about nutrition." But it's not targeted information as to how that appeals to me, and how I can actually make some changes in my family. So I did some research over the summer, and I sent out e-mails to about a hundred parents that I knew, saying: "Look, I want to answer your questions around family and child nutrition. Send them to me." I solicited responses, and I wrote up small, one-page articles that I'm now marketing to schools and PACs within the province.

           I titled the articles Growing Healthy Bodies because when my children say to me, "Mom, can we have this type of cookie?" when we're shopping, and I explain, "Look, what we're trying to do right now, while you're growing, is to grow a healthy body, so you can grow into adulthood," they connect with that; they understand that. So I thought that if a four- and a six-year-old can understand this message, this is a message that's accessible for everybody.

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           Basically, I've just got questions and answers. I've got eight topics right now. I launched a website a couple of weeks ago, and I'm getting the message out to parents, basically through school principals and PACs within elementary schools. I priced the articles at a fairly low cost, $15 per article, so that they're accessible to schools. You don't have to be a rich, urban school in order to get this message.

           Through my website parents can then, when they get the information from their schools, send me questions that I will cover for future issues. That's basically it. It's a link between schools and parents, which I think is missing.

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           Another thing that I feel is missing from a lot of the professional publications is a real connection on a personal level. In the writing style that I use…. I actually spoke to a professional journalist, and I said: "How can I get this message across?" She said: "When you write to parents, write it like you're talking to your best friend." So I give stats, and the articles are referenced, but I also say things like: "Well, in our family we do X, Y, Z." It's a casual connection and a personal relationship building–type of activity.

           I just wanted to have the opportunity to let you know one person is trying to do one thing to impact on this very huge problem.

           C. Wyse: Thanks very much, Joy. On behalf of the committee I'd ask you to stay around. I'm sure there will be questions a little bit later.

           Now I would like to welcome Gord Brosseuk of Annexation B.C. Thanks for taking time to come and speak with us.

           G. Brosseuk: No problem. I want to apologize. I had some notes, but I ended up giving them to the wrestling coach to read over, so I'm going to wing this a little bit. I'll keep it short.

           First, I'd like to thank you all for coming to the meeting and including all of us in this. You all in office here have obviously given up a lot of what you could do for yourselves. As a British Columbian I want to thank you over and over again. I know you don't get enough of that.

           What I want to address really quickly…. Listening to the proceedings, listening to government, listening to ideas over and over again, whether it be anywhere in North America or around the world….

           Let's turn this a little bit to business, almost, to give everybody an idea in layman's terms of how things…. I've heard people coming to me over the years in business, whether they're inventors, entrepreneurs with ideas, concepts, all kind of things that they think are fantastic. Things we've heard today are excellent, excellent ideas.

           The problem I've always found in business is that all these great ideas — all these patents, all these trademarks, all these inventions — are great, but they never see fruition. Why? The biggest thing is funding — money. It always boils down to money. All of the ideas, all of the things we hear from people come back to the same thing. We'd love to incorporate it, whether it's government or business or companies, but how do you fund these things?

           Katrine is the one person I heard — it's hard for me to hear in the back there — who touched on this a little bit. You spoke about a health tax or some sort of forum that way.

           I think as citizens we really need to see from government how you plan to fund this. How do you plan to pay for it? The citizens are coming together here, and they're telling you ideas. You as their representatives are going to sort through those ideas. How are you going to implement those ideas? How are you going to pay for them?

           Are you going to sell off…? Well, actually, how many B.C. assets do we have left to sell off anymore? I think we sold off plenty, and a lot of people probably aren't happy. How are we going to make good on these promises? How are we going to say to these people: "Yes, as government I want to implement that"? We have to tell them realistically how we can do it long-term.

           I have e-mailed and faxed some stuff to Ralph and to Kate and others there. You're welcome to take a look at that or talk to me later about what we're working towards doing, not just here in B.C. but across North America with politicians, private corporations and things. But I think we really as government have to let the people out there know that we're serious. We're not just here listening to your ideas, and it's just going to disappear like a lot of things in the past. This is how it's going to happen. This is how we're going to pay for it. Now bring your ideas to us.

           Then whether it's you, whether it's another panel…. I think any panel should be of the government and of the people, so there are no special interests. Then we can say: "Yes, that's a great idea. You move to the next level. Let's pay for that program. Let's implement it in our school. Let's build that gymnasium. Whether it's rock-climbing or wrestling or track and field, we have the funds to pay for it."

           If you come to me as a British Columbian, as a North American and say, "Hey, this is how we're going to do it, and this is how we're going to pay for it," and you're honest with me, I'm all for it. If you want implement it in a tax, whether it be a food tax or a health tax, tell me upfront. Don't fee me to death. Don't take it here. Don't chase out big corporations by taxing them out of British Columbia. Don't hide it here or hide it there. Be upfront with me. That's what British Columbians need.

           I just want to see that from government for a change, and I'm sure a lot of other people do, because what we're doing is an unbelievably important task.

[1100]

           I just hope and pray that you can see the end of it and make fruition.

           [R. Sultan in the chair.]

           C. Wyse: Thanks for the challenge.

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           R. Sultan (Chair): I think we'll all endorse that, and I don't think any of us on this legislative committee want to put in the hours we have — touring around the province, as we are — to write another report that goes on the shelf and gathers dust. I'm sure that's our pledge to you, but the proof will be in the eating. Keep holding our feet to the fire.

           Our next presenter is Bob Tam.

           B. Tam: Good morning. Greetings, guys. I've prepared a little speech. I'll probably have to read through it.

           R. Sultan (Chair): If I could just interrupt. I should have mentioned this before. We want to leave time for the questions we've been storing up for the various presenters. We do have a flight to Campbell River to catch at noon. So we would ask the remaining presenters to keep it quite brief. Thank you.

           B. Tam: You'll probably notice what I'm putting up here in the front. They're just small, little tokens of what kids can be playing and making while they're in school. A recess time of 15 minutes can actually take off a lot of stress buildup. They just go crazy on the playgrounds.

           This is a waterproof feather hat. You can play this in the pool. You can use it on your hands. You can also use it on your feet.

           I've actually started this up because my grandmother died of diabetes while I was still in high school. She didn't change her appetite for eating more and exercising less, thus at the age of 80 her loss was a wake-up call to my entire family. My mother and sisters read more health books and attended countless meetings on the promotion of personal health and wellness.

           I am a freelance personal coach specializing in offering a program of cross-sports training, dealing with athletes who play in hand sports — such as badminton, table tennis — to even swimmers who wish to take a well-rounded approach which focuses on getting the hand that's overworking overtime to be able to balance out on a workout using their weaker arm, for example.

           Through the period of 2006 I introduced the idea of balance — balance of food, balance of physical activity, plus a balance of the mind. In dealing with food, drinks are sought after in kids' meals. These are high-sugar content — sugared drinks and even the syrupy fruit juices. What I usually tell myself is that in order for me to drink this amount of cola — I prefer diet — I'd have to keep adding a lot of water. This is not to justify a loss of flavour but the overburden of the excess of sugar, which the body stores as insulin. Once the body gets too much insulin, it starts to squeeze out insulin from the pancreas. Doctors have the type 2 diabetes on their hands now, which in time they'll look after just like my grandmother. She passed away at the age of 80.

           Heavy sugar. The donut industry is still going strong. If I was taking in the sugar or heavy cheese taste, I'd offer kids a hot beverage — hot water, preferably. This is because, when eating some sugar, it washes it down perfectly. When eating oily foods, it needs the same treatment.

           The balance of physical activity. Everybody knows that what you put in, you're going to have the same coming out. When you factor in exercise and fluids such as water, it makes it easier for it to be released so you can have more room to eat. Given the activity that you're doing, try to promote using the other hand or the feet. Try to divide the time between playing hand-held video games or on-line games under a set time limit, and get out and enjoy the good, fresh air.

           Balance of mind. The advent of a particular music which is popular because of profane lyrics…. Set your child's mind, for example, to cleanliness, and clean up the act of kids swearing because they have heard it in the house — from the parent, possibly. This balance focuses on not swearing, and a clean mind with a clean mouth smells a lot better — for example, like clean air. Once you establish that there is a power which permits you to balance your mind by changing your choice of language, then you are aware that you are capable of changing your mind on taking up unsavoury food choices.

[1105]

           It sounds pretty simple, but it's an important element in an activity that I feel is worth promoting in our present day. I applied myself and finally had a community centre take my program to 40,000 neighbourhood households. We were invited to the 2006 July 1st Canada Day celebrations, which was my first time showing the public what I'd dreamt up, and now I was actually on stage performing in front of a sea of people.

           It's a day that I introduced a game called "feather-hatting." This game is old — actually fifth century B.C. If you'd like, I can show you a demonstration of how it's actually done. It's done with hands and feet. You can call it "hand badminton" or "feet badminton." I brought along a friend in the back, and he's just getting ready to put on some gloves and show you gentlemen, ladies and distinguished guests how we actually get this done.

           In the 1940s and 1950s there was a game called "mungo sungo" that was played only in Strathcona, because it was made and was actually brought in by a Japanese craftsperson. Kids were playing 15 minutes during recess, half an hour after lunch, then another half an hour after school. They're trying to see how high they can actually balance the feather hat and how many times they can actually kick it and keep it up in the air.

           Without further ado, after years and years of prototypes — from hands to having to have two pairs of sandals all clumped up together to making a concept design that I think is fully workable — all you have to do is slip in your hands, and you're there. Backhand; forehand. You also have something that you can put into your other hand, which I think is quite cool.

           If you, ladies and gentlemen, are interested in checking out how this actually works…. We haven't rehearsed this yet, but we practised for about two years on and off. So hopefully, we'd like to introduce this in

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the particular public school system. You can start off by making your own feather hats, and gain ownership for the kids and produce art and cultural events that would tie it into this.

           If you are ready, folks, my friend's name is Albert. He's really camera-shy. Let's give a warm hand for him. There are different models and makes in every one of these, and you can call your own. There are also ones from the dollar store that you can hit against the wall by yourself to practise — all that stress relief.

           Just to keep things nice and tidy and short…. Plus I'll make one that's more traditional, and that's in tune with the Olympic logo. Hopefully, we can bring this over to Whistler. I am also a snowboard instructor. Going up to the tops of the mountains to be hitting some of this would be pretty fun. If you would be interested in joining us one day….

           Let's give a round of welcome to Albert. Come on up.

           It starts by tossing it to your friend. You have some moves to show. There are hands; there are feet. Because we haven't practised yet, guys, you don't really have to take up problems with your back. You really have to bend down. If you have a bad back in…. All you have to do is practise, and you've got it with your feet.

           Obviously, we'll have higher altitudes to play this. You don't need big space. It goes from this. Use your hands. With practice, your left hand then your right hand — you get the idea. Then finally, you're working on your feet. There are different combinations that you're actually working with: your left foot and you're working with your right foot. So there are actual games and actual drills that we're bringing to kids. Hopefully, there are options out there that you, ladies and gentlemen, are interested in.

           If you noticed, I made my own T-shirts today. It has been promoted with a community centre in the past. It's called "hit fit." Really quickly, we are….

[1110]

           R. Sultan (Chair): Bob, we're going to have to move it along. I mean, we're very impressed. I think we should give Bob a hand.

           [Applause.]

           B. Tam: Okay. Thank you.

           R. Sultan (Chair): We have four presenters left, and if they promise to confine their remarks to two minutes each, we will squeeze them all in. The first one would be Ryan Smith. Two minutes.

           R. Smith: Wonderful. I can be very brief. I'm just sharing some research from the yoga community. My name is Ryan Smith. I work with a charity called Yoga Outreach. We have been working in health care facilities, women's shelters and prisons around the province for the last eight years.

           Many school districts internationally are bringing the tools of yoga into the classroom, and several major pilot programs have led to the successful integration of yoga into school schedules. I see also in the ActNow programming that there is a recommendation for yoga to be practised, and many school teachers are asking for curriculum to be developed, because it is something that can be practised in the morning, in PE, after school and at home.

           It's basically understanding a few series of both stretching and physical activities that can be anywhere from ten minutes to an hour. In terms of a form of physical activity, it's extremely flexible and fits into the curriculum quite well.

           "Gloria Siech, who leads the physical education program for the San Francisco unified school district, says yoga is a powerful fitness tool for young people because it is low-stress and non-competitive. 'It's individual, and each kid can do it as far as they can go. There's no keeping score. There's no telling them that they're not good enough,' Siech says. 'It helps to centre kids and helps them concentrate. They are able to calm down and breathe, and the teachers see the improvement immediately.'"

That was a quote from the Los Angeles Times in 2002.

           R. Sultan (Chair): Okay, Ryan, you've had your two minutes. Thank you.

           Now we have Stacy Friedman of the Landed Learning project. Welcome, Stacy.

           S. Friedman: Thank you very much for my two minutes. I'm here as a representative of the Landed Learning project, but I'm also talking about school gardens, like the woman who spoke before who had to leave. So I'm here to field any questions around school gardening.

           I wanted to just emphasize a couple of points that have already been made, because the people who are all here are people who really care about the health of our children and our communities. That's why we're all here. I really honour you for being here. I wanted to emphasize that health incorporates so many different things beyond just obesity. Our emotional and physical health, our community health and our environmental health are all tied together.

           The role of gardening, yoga and tennis and many of these other activities in the school is that they're countering the impact of media and advertising to children. They're fun. They support emotional, environmental and social health.

           In the case of gardening, it actually does give kids an enjoyment of vegetables. They actually see them growing. They do want to eat them. They feel pride in it. They also learn about food security and nutrition and actually defining what is healthy — it's not just about obesity; there are so many components to what health is — without creating a fixation on fat, which can be really dangerous. Ultimately, we don't want to turn kids away from eating altogether, which does happen, and we don't want to have a standing committee on anorexia next year.

           R. Sultan (Chair): Finally, we have Tammy Wirick from school district 41, followed by Kristina Pikksalu.

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           T. Wirick: My name is Tammy Wirick, and I have the privilege of being the physical education, sports and healthy schools program consultant for the school district of Burnaby. I'm one of two in the province. In our district we see that as a priority, and I think you've heard many people speak to the importance of that. My role is to liaise with many organizations, like parks and recreation and ActNow, and to support physical education, sports and health initiatives in the schools.

[1115]

           I'd just like to make a few points, following up on what I've heard this morning. First of all, I do want to differentiate between what we talk about in terms of physical education, physical activity and exercise.

           Physical education is a curriculum which teaches knowledge, skills and attitudes. There is certainly value in exercise, which is movement with a purpose — for the purpose of fitness — and also physical activity. But I think it's important that we hold on to the integrity of what we're doing, rather than simply promoting physical activity, if we want to be successful in the long term.

           In our district we actually have the highest senior PE enrolment at Alpha Secondary School: 71 percent. In the province there is an average of 22 percent. I attribute that to both the expertise and the initiatives taken by the staff at that school, the support we have within our school district and the partnerships we have with many of the organizations that allow our students in senior PE to participate in activities such as rock climbing and alternate activities.

           I'd like to point out, too, that alternate environment activities are one of the five movement categories that are in the physical education curriculum. They are not an extra, and if we expect to support these, we do need to have the funding to do so. We also have a higher female percentage in these courses. It's 10 percent females in most of the senior PE courses, 90 percent male. It's significantly different at Alpha.

           The last point I'd like to make — several others that I'd love to touch on, but I know there's a time limit here — is that of risk-taking. I think that ties in with the idea of alternate physical activities and supporting students. I think that over the last 20 years we've done a great deal to diminish reasonable risk-taking in adolescents.

           The number-one factor in social value in the adolescent boys in our culture is physical skill. We have done many things to diminish their opportunities to participate in taking reasonable risks, be that because we have perceived safety concerns or liability concerns within organizations. It's activities such as skateboarding and rock climbing, which have a structure and a support system in which they can take these reasonable risks, that I think will do a great deal beyond just reducing rates of obesity but for the health of these children in years to come.

           My last note. I'd just like to say that, unfortunately, one of the quotes I like to bring is that obesity is not a problem of intellect, and we need to take action on it if we want to make a difference.

           R. Sultan (Chair): Thank you, Tammy, for a very well presented, compact presentation.

           Our final presenter is Kristina Pikksalu.

           K. Pikksalu: Hi. I'm Kristina Pikksalu, and I am a registered nurse. I work in public health with children and youth, but I'm here as a community member. I just have three brief points to talk about.

           This whole morning has been talking about suggestions and initiatives, so I plead with you and ask you to take into account the social determinants of health when you're making these choices. I'm sure you all know what they are, so I won't go over them. If you don't, please educate yourself on what they are, because they basically determine our health in the whole world. We've got people of different cultures, different ages, gender — everything. So please take those into account when you're making decisions. It's very important.

           The second point is to support parents to make healthy choices for their children, whether that be in transportation, in eating or in physical activity. It's an upstream thinking that we want to sort of generate, so if we support the parents, then we can help the children in the future.

           The third point is something that the woman from Smart Growth pointed out. It's city planning. Built environments and greenspace are all very important. Involve the kids. The city planners, landscape architects — all those guys and girls — hold focus groups with children when they're planning. They know what they want. They do. So involve them — okay?

           R. Sultan (Chair): Thank you, Kristina.

           Well, I think, finally, we come to the question period. I believe Val Roddick had some questions to address to the Delta contingent for starters.

           V. Roddick: I've got a lot, actually. I don't want to impinge on your timing rule like I did the last time. Why don't we start at that end? And when time allows, then I can ramble on.

[1120]

           R. Sultan (Chair): For the record, Val has put herself from the top of the list to the very bottom, so this will be an interesting exercise.

           K. Conroy: We'll keep it short so Val can do all hers. Is that what the message is?

           I'm glad, Stacy, that you're still here, because I did want to talk to the woman on the gardens, and I saw that she'd left. I was actually curious to know how many…. She said that the Vancouver school board has a policy against growing edible items in the school, so I wondered how many schools actually had community gardens and what the cost is to get them up and running. How do you go about doing that?

           S. Friedman: I actually don't know the specific numbers. There are several schools in Vancouver that

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do have school gardens and, sometimes, community gardens tied in with them. Currently the Food Policy Council in Vancouver is trying to put in 2,010 new school and community gardens by the year 2010 but is definitely facing some challenges there.

           The costs. There are a lot of costs associated with school gardens. There is an organization called Evergreen that does support that, but the challenges are often in maintaining gardens and having support to put in infrastructure, like watering systems, which is kind of more difficult. That's what you need to keep a garden going through the summer. So it can be quite costly.

           K. Conroy: I'm assuming that it's more of an issue down here. I know the Kootenays, and most people in the Kootenays have gardens. The kids grow stuff, and then they're not going to…. I know the kids from the city don't have that access to it. Our granddaughter lives in Victoria. We raised animals — cows — and she informed her kindergarten teacher that meat doesn't come from the store, that it actually comes from grandpa's farm. The kids do that same issue around growing vegetables. It's great.

           S. Friedman: Yeah, they don't know where our food comes from unless we actually teach it to them, so health is really an abstract concept.

           M. Sather: A few questions, very quickly.

           John, it sounds like your Head Start program is an innovative one. I like the emphasis on…. I just want to ask you a question about your program. First of all, is it during school hours, or is it after school hours? If it's during school hours…. I'm just trying to get an understanding, because I'm hearing a lot of consultants this morning. Why wouldn't that be offered within the school system by a PE teacher?

           J. Yalowica: It's offered during school hours. The basic setup is just in PE time. What the school does is…. Because the cost of it is quite low, it's more practical for a coach to come in and coach the program during school. Then each class would come in back to back, so you'd have one class from nine to 9:30 and then another class from 9:30 to ten and like that throughout the whole day.

           It's offered in four lessons. Again, for practicality and continuity for the learning process, the classes are one after the other, so you'd go from Monday to Thursday because each child gets four lessons. Just for the sake of explaining this, if there was a school with eight divisions and they had eight blocks a day, then you'd have eight classes per day for four days. Every child would get four lessons, and then that would be the package done.

           M. Sather: Just another question I had, actually, for Gord. What is Annexation B.C.? Could you briefly explain?

           G. Brosseuk: Annexation B.C. is basically…. We are working towards a North American union. How that starts is that the founders of the United States of America as we know it — people like Benjamin Franklin, George Washington…. Their initial plan and dream was not just for what we know as the United States today. It included all of Canada.

[1125]

           You would not be sitting in Victoria, taking all what we wish for you and what your constituents want. We would be sending you to Washington to sit beside our neighbouring states, like Alaska, Washington and all the rest — whether it be on issues of health, fisheries, mining, forestry or any of those things — on an equal footing. There would be no more of this 49th parallel, which Britain, as far as I'm concerned, has there. It would be wide open. We would have equal representation.

           Those of you who may not be a Bush fan or may be a Bush fan would have a voice in that also.

           M. Sather: You're a Canadian — right?

           G. Brosseuk: I am a Canadian. I grew up overseas. I spent many of my years as a missionary kid overseas, and I spent many years in the States, so I feel I have a fairly well-rounded understanding of not just North America — Canada and the U.S. — but the world in general.

           It's surprising. I can speak to you later — I'm not taking away from the health thing — about how far we've come along in the last couple of years. I think most of you do know that Bush and Harper are also now speaking about a North American union.

           C. Wyse: I've got two general areas. My first one, I think, is to Dina, to sort of give a bit of a heads-up. There was a conversation around how emphasis upon testing reading, writing and arithmetic has possibly contributed to the lack of emphasis given to children and the phys ed aspect of the health component of it.

           D. Howell: No, it wasn't that testing that took away from phys ed. It was that a lot of districts are allotting money more to reading, writing and math programs, special education — because that's a really hot one right now — and technology, and we're losing funding for PE more and more.

           I don't know all the stats, but I know that having been raised and gone to school in Coquitlam and having taught there for a number of years, the program seems to be losing money all the time. We used to have a lot more people in the private areas, like the Head Start, coming in to do programs. Now at a district level they would fund it for us, at least help to subsidize. That seems to be eroding. We're doing a lot more on the local school level.

           I had to do all my own phoning to all the local places that I want to take my fitness 11 to. Nothing is done at the district level anymore.

           C. Wyse: I appreciate your comment. If I could be provided with an opportunity to get to my question, I would appreciate it.

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           Has the emphasis that testing has provided at the provincial level on the reading, writing and arithmetic — the public aspect that is given in that area — contributed to that decrease in funding, in your mind?

           D. Howell: I don't know that.

           C. Wyse: Okay. Thank you.

           My other one will be to Bess and Jennifer. If I was picking up the general presentation that you were making in bridging this responsibility from the community to school, do you have suggestions on how, in your area, you're also bridging, again, from community to the home aspect of it for the promotion of health?

           J. Taylor: You're asking, just to reiterate, about bridging the schools to….

           C. Wyse: I was able to pull out clearly what you were doing to bridge the involvement between the community and the school aspect of it. However, I was wondering what you also may have in place to bridge from the community back to the family — that component.

           J. Taylor: The families. We would like to, obviously, provide more programs for a family moment, so they can come to our rec centres as a family, so mom and dad and kids can do activities together and have health and wellness lectures for the family and for the benefit of the family offered at every rec centre in all three of our areas, Ladner, Tsawwassen and North Delta. We're just looking for more outlets so we can educate families, as well, in our community centres.

[1130]

           K. Whittred: My apologies to the group for being tardy this morning. I have a question for Tammy, partly because I spent my entire life working in district 41, and I spent 17 years at Alpha. I wanted to ask you: in your opinion, from where you sit as coordinator for the district, what does Alpha do differently from other schools that they have this extremely high participation rate for phys ed?

           T. Wirick: One of the things they do differently is that they put a great emphasis on explicitly teaching what the personal social responsibility learning outcomes are of the curriculum. They communicate that back and forth with students in terms of self-evaluation and give it higher priority than specifically testing traditional skills.

           They use heart rate monitors extensively in their program. If you're not familiar with that, heart rate monitors individually monitor students' heart rates, so their cardiovascular endurance is personalized. Often you perceive that the child who's running the fastest is the one that's giving the greatest effort. Therefore, they have facts to support the ability to give evaluation value by understanding the effort that the student really is putting forth and, specifically, how much effort we want to get from the students, rather than that no pain, no gain approach.

           I think they're on the cutting edge. The PE department head there is extremely dedicated and involved in professional development activities that allow him to support the staff and the district this way.

           V. Roddick: I just think that everybody's presentations were really helpful. I really like the community effort that you're all trying to make — yours in particular because you really are reaching out, starting from the municipal level, which is really important, to work together.

           For instance, I don't know whether you are aware — I think it went out yesterday — that B.C. is competing for where the Western Canada Games are going to be held. Every municipality and regional district or whatever can put in to compete to hold these games. I can't remember what the date is now. You'll have to check on your BlackBerry. You have to have your bid in by December of this year, so it's only in the next couple of years. This is something that we could all do as communities vying with each other, but it still gets kids involved. That was one thing.

           I just wanted to say, really, in discussing with you, because what Delta does have, which I'm sure every community does…. We've got the Earthwise Garden in Southlands to work with. Gerald Worobetz is the chef at the Tsawwassen high school. He takes all the teenagers that he's teaching out to the local farms and shows them what a spud looks like, what a carrot looks like — that sort of thing — which is, again, healthy.

           If you could ever hook in and do things at the rec centre along with that and work at the rec centre, I'm sure, with Delta Gymnastics, which isn't just gymnastics…. They're bringing in kids from soccer, kids from tennis, kids from ballet, swimmers, hockey players, so that they're just better athletes. The skateboard parks — same thing. You've got one in Ladner, in Tsawwassen and, I'm sure, in North Delta.

           The Delta Healthcare Association, which is our community liaison group, goes from the community so that the general public can communicate with the Delta Hospital and the Fraser Health Authority. So there's some conduit there.

           They just had a health fair with the Boys and Girls Club. It was brilliant. The only thing that was missing was more of a showing of youth. There were some youth there, but that's where this is really working well, and there's also the 2010 committee with Joy Fera, who's an ex-Olympian, and Carlene Lewall of Delta Gymnastics.

[1135]

           This is really exciting for me because it shows that these people are getting interested and that communities can work together. You've got a job cut out for you. But I know that with Delta you'll be able to do it. I really appreciate…. How long have you actually been in action, trying to pull this together?

           J. Taylor: Jennifer Taylor, Delta Parks and Rec. We've been registered as an active community since

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fall 2005. We brought our active community together just in the spring. We have myself, fitness, aquatics, community rec, parks and development, and marketing and more of the management — about six of us in there.

           We're starting to realize, just over the last few months, that this set out a plan per se. It's because of active communities, which has made us think: okay, we need to get together as a community and partner with everything that's going on to make things happen. It's a great excuse to get together — the active communities initiative. We're hoping to really excel with it. There are endless things we can do.

           V. Roddick: Have you been working with other closer communities like, for instance, Richmond or White Rock? Do they have…?

           J. Taylor: They do. Yesterday I was at the Fraser Health unit in Guildford, and we had the meeting with every lower mainland active community leader. We had everyone there — Richmond, Abbotsford, tons of people. It's amazing, though, the roadblocks that we've seen so far.

           Abbotsford has actually excelled in this so far with their In Motion. Abbotsford is an excellent example as far as how they've succeeded in getting the word out to kids, getting children involved in their community. It was amazing. It's definitely a model to look at, and we all are striving to succeed like they have so far.

           We've all realized collectively, as a group, that we need to communicate more, and we need to start talking. "What works? What doesn't? What works in your community? What hasn't?" We haven't done that in the past, so there are a lot of doors that could be opened.

           V. Roddick: Well, that sounds terrific.

           R. Sultan (Chair): I was just going to announce — for the benefit, unfortunately, of only the members of the Legislature — that apparently the students of Sir Charles Tupper have prepared lunch for us, using the very best of dietary guidelines, I'm sure. It's waiting for us.

           On that tempting note, I think I'm compelled to say that this hearing is adjourned. I would like once more to thank so much the principals and the staff and, in particular, the students who have accommodated us and brought their testimony forward and also those who have travelled from Burnaby, Delta and all sorts of other places, including concerned citizens in the best democratic tradition of this province, to bring forward their views. It's extremely helpful to this committee, and we all thank you for that.

           This meeting is now adjourned.

          The committee adjourned at 11:38 a.m.

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